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CORRECTED PROOFS, 



H 



^ HASTING 



S WELD 




BOSTON : 
RUSSELL, SHATTUCK & CO. 



1836. 






Entered according to Act of Congreas, in the > ern- 1S5(^, hy 
n . Hastings Weld, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of 
Massachusetts. 



W a V e r 1 e y P t e ; s . 
Alfred Mud-f, PriD; 



TO THE 

OF THE PERIODICALS TO WHICH 

HE HAS BEEN 

A CONTRIBUTOR. 
THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED 



ife 



H .^Wls'iSOm. 



PREFACE 



It is a trite saying that the Preface is a book- 
wright's horror — but its very triteness is proof of its 
truth — and that truth is excuse for its iteration here. 
In the body of the work, the Author addresses the 
world generally — the Preface is particularly inscribed 
to the reader ; — writing it is like going through a set 
form, in accordance with rules of etiquette — or through 
a difficult concerted piece, where, to be excellent, is 
only to be tolerable. Any thing below that is a 
lamentable failure ; any thing above it is seldom 
attained. 

People look to the Preface for an expose of the views 
of the Author in publishing — but it is not one in a hun- 
dred cases that they find it there. Self-esteem gene- 
rally prompts the perpetration of a book, and the very 
organ of the mind which induces the act, leads also to 
a concealment of the motive. But the world all see it 
— particularly where, as in this case, there is no ap- 
parent moral end to be gained — no establishment of a 
new theory, or refutation of an old one. It is as 
useless, therefore, for the Author to deny, on his part, 



8^ PREFACE. 

that he holds a pretty good opinion of the contents of 
this volume, as for a convicted felon to persist in de- 
claring his innocence. He, the Author, avows ihen^ 
that he thinks the matter hereinafter contained well 
worthy of preservation. If the judgment of the public 
support him, well — if not — he will be in a glorious 
minority. That's all. 

The Tales, Sketches, &c. here collected and offered 
to the public, are selections from the contributions of 
the Author to different periodicals during the last five 
years — principally, however, to the Boston Galaxy, and 
Boston Pearl. A majority of them have received such 
newspaper sanction, by being noticed and copied, as 
strengthens the opinion of them which has induced this 
reprint. There is also mingled with his Self-esteem 
(to talk Phrenologically,) not a little Acquisitiveness, 
and some Selfishness. He wishes to try the experi- 
ment, whether a transcript of them from the places in 
which they were originally published, may not benefit 
himself, as well as others. 



CONTENTS. 



Love and Law . . . . . . . . 11 

The Bustling Man 26 

The Partners 28 

Degrees of Drunkenness . . . . . - . 39 

A Winter in Cedarville ....... 41 

A Pet in a Pet 52 

The Postscript 58 

The Old Soldier 60 

Bacchanalian Song ....... 64 

The Martyr to Science 65 

The Vaudois Harvest Hymn ...... 76 

Easy Joe Bruce ........ 78 

The Omnibus 82 

The Independent Beggar ...... 88 

Epistle to Mr Durant 90 

Tar Brush Sketches— At Sea 92 

In Callao Harbor . . . 102 

In Boston Harbor . . . 135 

Land Tacks Aboard . • . . 144 

A Lament 160 

Directions to Enable a Man to Practise Medicine Successfully 162 
My Friend's Story . . . . . . .165 

Gluid Pro Quo ........ 173 



10 



CONTENTS 



Modern Degeneracy 

Boots ...... 

The Mother to her Infant 
Wanderings of Peter Peregrinate . 
Old Kit and his Daughters 
Sir, a Secret ! Most Important ! 
A Leaf from the Life of a Pedagogue 
The Maiden Aunt ..... 

Music Mad 

The Genius ..... 

Complaint of a Smart Fellow 

A Vision ..... 

Mr Timoris Dumps 

Confessions of a Bashful Man 

Keep Comfortable 



PARAGRAPHS 



Ennui . 

Retrospection 

Autobiographies 

Sir Hugh Evans 

Double Sense 

To be Well Bred 

To Avoid Bombast 

Dreams 

Books . 

Stealth . 

A Saint on the Lookout 

Parmenio 



CORRECTED PROOFS. 



LOVE AND LAW. 

What benefit can children be 

But charges and disobedience ? What's the 

Love they render, at one and twenty years ? 

*'I won't ! I won't! I won't! I tell you, and it's no 
use talking. He's an impudent, obstinate blockhead, 
and I'll kick hiin out, just so sure as he darkens my 
door again! " 

*'But father!" 

'' But what? " 

"You know it is not a twelvemonth, since lie saved 
your house — " 

" No such thing! no such thing! Every thing was 
doing well enough ! every body was running with water, 
as fast as they could, and I was directing 'em, and up 
comes Mr Burnet, on a walk. He wouldn't run, if the 
town was a-fire. 'Gentlemen,' says he, as if that was a 
time for compliments — and they all minded him, without 
taking any more notice of me, than if I was ravin' mad. 
He stopped 'em all from running too, as well as himself. 



]2 CORRECTED PROOFS. 

and planted 'em all along in rows, like Indian corn — 
and—" 

'' Saved your house by his coolness, method, and reg- 
ularity." 

" Coolness be d — d! Coolness at a fire, to be sure! 
A pretty pass we have come to, when a man sixty years 
old, who has been selectman ten year^, and representa- 
tive twice, is to be slighted for a chicken who has not 
moulted his first coat of feathers ! As if a man had no 
interest in his own affairs, and could not have his say, 
when his own house was burning!" 

'' You owe the preservation of your house to the chick- 
en, nevertheless." 

"No such thing! no such thing! And if I do, I had 
rather it had burned down, than that he should have the 
chance to boast that he has. And you, too, eternally 
throwing it in my teeth — I'll set fire to it myself — I'll be 
hanged if I don't!" 

'* You'll be hanged if you do, father, and that would 
be very unpleasant to every body except your friend, 
Mr Giles." 

" And you — you'd be glad of it, too. I should be 
out of the way then, and you might marry tTie pettifog- 
ging scoundrel ! " 

" You knoiv he hates litigation. Pettifogging indeed I 
Did he not settle your mill-stream suit against Giles, 
without inflicting upon you the irritation, delay, and 
cost of a trial?" 

" There you come again. I wish he had been drowned 
in the stream, before he made the settlement. I hate 
Giles — and meant to ruin him. You knew it — and 
Burnet knew it." 

" He recovered the damages you claimed." 



LOVE AND LAW, 13 

" A fig for the damages ! I told him to chase Giles — to 
hunt him to the poor-house, — and what does he do but 
persuade the scamp to settle, without so much as say- 
ing 'sheriff!' to him. If he saved me costs, he saved 
him too, — when I would willingly have thrown away five 
thousand dollars, to see Giles at work on the road." 

" Two thousand in hand, is better than seven thrown 
away." 

" I dare say, I dare say. So you think — you expect 
that you and Mr Burnet will be a thousand better off. 
But you sha'n't — I'll disinherit you — I'll make my will 
— I'll make it to-day — I'll make it now." 

" Shall I send John for Mr Burnet, father ? You must 
have a lawyer, you know." 

This was the climax. Mary Williams had vexed her 
father to the utmost safe extremity. She left the room, 
making aprovokingly dutiful '' curtsy" at the door. The 
old man paced the floor, in an agony of vexation. 

'' I'll disown her, and adopt Black Sal, the kitchen girl 
— I'll disinherit her, and give my property to the Colo- 
nization Society — I'll never speak to her again — I'll 
turn her out of doors — I'll go this very instant and tell 
her—" 

"To roast that pair of chickens, or boil them, papa?" 

Mary ivas pretty — and the old man was partially dis- 
armed by the smiling phiz she thrust in at the door ; — 
appeased in spite of himself, for he was proud of his 
daughter. 

" Boil them, Mary. I won't, till after dinner." 

''Won't what, fatiierf 

" Begone! you undutiful hussy." 

If the reader is a daughter, I need not tell her that 
Mary had overheard every word of her father's angry 



14 CORRECTED PROOFS. 

soliloquy, — if he be a father, I need not tell him, that, 
although the old gentleman tried to persuade himself he 
was in earnest, his threats were quite as likely to be put 
into execution, as the comet is to brush away this world 
of ours. And Mary knew it. Such skirmishes between 
the father and daughter were diurnally repeated — things 
of course, like the encounters between Commodore 
Trunnion and Tom Pipes. There was, however, this 
difference, — the ex-nautical belligerents sparred in pub- 
lic — Old Williams and his daughter held their discus- 
sions in private. We cannot commend the conduct of 
Mary in thus harassing her father, — but if good ever 
came out of evil, it certainly did in these domestic dif- 
ferences. As a thunder-storm clears and purifies the 
atmosphere, so the air of their afternoon and evening 
fire-sides was materially improved by the storms of the 
morning. The old gentleman sallied out, after giving 
Mary the last word, which, unlike a majority of her sex, 
she always allowed him, and was invariably in good 
humor at dinner-time. The motto of the afternoon, in 
reference to the altercation of the morning, was 

Oh no! we never mention it — 

And Father Williams suffered himself to be read peace- 
ably to sleep in his arm-chair. If, upon waking, he 
should even discover Burnet in the room — a thing, by 
the way, of no unfrequent occurrence — the placid feel- 
ings which wait upon temperance and a good digestion 
had hitherto made him civil to his daughter's guest, — 
or at least reserve his wrath, to be poured upon Mary's 
head the next day. And, like a dutiful daughter, we 
have seen how she endured, her parent's wayward 
humors. Her mother had been dead for years, and, 



LOVE AND LAW 



15 



but for the manner in which Mary filled her place in 
vexing her father, she would, long before, have been an 
orphan. True it was, she was more than a daughter 
to him, compelling him to forget, while she tormented 
him, that the old butt of his caprices, his wife, ivas silent. 

With subtle cobweb cheats, 
They've stepped in the law like nets, 
In which, when once they are embrangled. 
The more they stir, the more they' re tangled. 

We have seen how religiously Mr Williams hated a 
certain person with whom he had had some law em- 
branglements ; and, sooth to say, his aversion had good 
and sufficient grounds. Giles was one of those detestable 
animals to be met with in almost every community, who 
are never happy but when in litigation. Every thought 
had some connexion with what Blackstone terms the 
" perfection of human reason," but it was only upon the 
imperfections of that perfection that he studied to per- 
fect himself — or rather, in which he liked to dabble. 
Observe it when you will, those whose names are oft- 
enest found with a " rs." added, are those who are least 
acquainted with the wholesome and necessary enact- 
ments of the law. Every window which looked upon 
any part of Giles's estate was darkened with a dead 
wall, — the branches of every fruit tree which overhung 
his ground, from his neighbors' enclosures, were pluck- 
ed of their produce, or sawed off even with the fence. 
To look upon his land was almost a trespass — to step 
upon it quite one. He knew the path to the pound 
better than that to the church — as his neighbors' cattle 
could witness. No contract was binding with him, 
unless it was duly signed, witnessed and acknowledged. 



16 CORRECTED PROOFS. 

For such a man, our friend Williams, quick and strong 
in his passions, and frank to bluntness, could entertain 
no feelings but disgust in the abstract, — when he found 
himself actually entangled in the toils of the wily knave, 
he was furious. 

It is unnecessary to go into the details of the dispute 
— it is sufficient to say that Williams was clearly in the 
right, and Giles as clearly in the wrong; as the reader 
will surmise from their respective characters. The lat- 
ter had presumed upon the known dislike of the former 
for litigation — but his bold attempt at villany was foiled 
by the anger of Williams, who immediately, and for the 
first time in his life, appealed to the law. To avoid, as 
much as possible, a business for which he had an un- 
conquerable loathing, he committed the whole affair to 
Burnet, with full power to manage it at his discretion, 
— only signifying his wish that not a point should be 
yielded, but that Giles should be wrung out of his last 
dollar, if possible, by appeal, continuation, or any other 
means. Burnet chose the more direct way of adjusting 
the matter, by compromise, to which Giles, who found 
he had caught a Tartar, readily assented ; but Burnet 
was astonished to find his services so ill appreciated, 
that, upon hearing the result, Williams transferred his 
dislike from his opponent to his attorney. The old gen- 
tleman had made a sort of merit of his intention to beg- 
gar his antagonist, and, in his rage at being disappointed, 
flatly and directly charged the lawyer with having been 
the accomplice of Giles, in an attempt to impose upon 
him. We cannot tell how Burnet would have received 
such a charge, had it not been for the interference of a 
certain blind god, who imparts a portion of his own in- 
distinctness o/ vision to lovers, when the faults and 



LOVE AND LAW. 17 

impertinence of fathers are apparent enough to every 
body else. 

Reasoning him out of so preposterous an idea was only 
hunting him to another cover. He insisted upon it that 
Burnet was only careful of his interest, because he 
expected one day to inherit the property he preserved. 
His conduct upon this conviction was less violent, but 
more determined than before. Such were the effects 
of one lawsuit upon a naturally frank and open disposi- 
tion ! Williams had learned to suspect the motives of 
all about him. He had also learned concealment, for 
he hugged his suspicions to himself, and inwardly, but 
firmly resolved, that the young man, from whom, twenty- 
four hours before, he would have concealed nothing, 
and to whom he would have denied nothing, should be 
forbidden the house. We have seen how this determi- 
nation was received by Mary, and how, despite the old 
gentleman's threats, the visits of Burnet were still con- 
tinued. To do the young man justice, however, it is 
fair to state, that he was an innocent trespasser. Had 
he caught an inkling of the old gentleman's suspicions, 
he was too high-spirited to give them a color, by perse- 
vering in his suit to the daughter. 

****** 

" She sha'n't !" 

" He talks in his sleep, Mary." 

*' I won't — I won't, never will — it's no — "(indistinct.) 

''What does he mean?" 

" He is fighting over liis battles with Giles." 

Mary knew that was a — fib — when she uttered it ; and 
fearful that her father's treacherous tongue would be- 
tray her, rose to waken him. 

" Stop, Mary, there he goes again." 
2* 



18 CORRECTED PROOFS. 

" He hates Giles so devoutly," said Mary, trembling-. 
" Let me wake him." 
" No, no, sit still." 

" Comes here — ( indistinct ) — kick him out ! " 
^' Mr Giles does not come here, Mary ! " 
The tone in which that short sentence w^as uttered, 
spoke all the wounded pride of Burnet, at discovering 
the deceit which had been practised upon him. The 
whole truth flashed upon his mind, — she had been 
receiving his addresses in her father's house, in his very 
presence, against that parent's positive wish and com- 
mand. How startling is the distinct, slow enunciation 
of mingled reproof and biting sarcasm ! Although pro- 
nounced in an under-tone, it disturbed the old gentle- 
man, and he started from his chair, completely awake. 
" Hey ! what ! ah, Burnet," said he, coldly, " good 
evening. But what the devil does all this mean 1 Mary 
there is as red as her shawl, — and you look like a 
convicted felon." Poor Burnet did indeed betray that 
he felt the awkwardness of his situation. As if he had 
discovered a gunpowder plot, the old man suddenly re- 
sumed — " Pretty well — p-r-e-t-t-y well — d d well, Mr 

Burnet ! What have you been doing — what have you 
been saying, sir, to my daughter, in my own house, and 
under my very nose, sir ? " 
"Mr Williams!" 

*' Mr Burnet !" And the old gentleman made a very 
low bow. 

" Mr Williams, I have accidentally discovered, by 
your murmurings in your slumbers, that you propose to 
kick me out of your house." 
" Sir ! " 
" No more concealment, Mr Williams ; it sits ill upon 



LOVE AND LAW. 19 

you. If, with your accustomed frankness, you had told 
me that my visits to your daughter were disagreeable 
to you, I never would have intruded them." 

" Stay away, and wish me dead — eh? " 

" Sir ! " 

" Yes, just as I say. I know I can't wear two faces, 
like a lawyer, ( between his teeth, ) and since I've got 
a part of the load off my stomach in my sleep, I'll be 
hanged if the whole sha'n't come. I believe you don't 
care a d — n for my daughter — but want to marry my 
money. There ! you have got all now, that you could 
fish out of what I shall say in my sleep for a year to 
come — or as long as I live." 

"Well, Mr Williams, I shall not undertake, by talk- 
ing, to defend myself, as I can do that best by a course 
which will not only save words, but time, and not a few 
steps between my office and your house. I wish you a 
good evening, sir, and a night's sleep where I shall not 
be a listener — and to you, Mary, I wish a portion of 
your father's honest frankness. Had you possessed a 
tithe of it, I should not now be so ridiculously situated. 
Allow me sir, before I go, as a particular favor, to 
inquire wh?it friend possessed you with so good an opin- 
ion of me." 

" Your best friend, sir — yourself! You need not try 
to eye me out of countenance ; if I am a witness against 
you, I am not to be brow-beaten, I promise you. I told 
you to keep the ball a-rolling with that scoundrel Giles, 
till you had barked him clean. I told you that I would 
throw away two dollars for his one, till he had not a six- 
pence left — I wanted to rid the county of him. In- 
stead of that, you compromise, and bring me a couple 
of thousand dollars of his money. You thought me an 



20 CORRECTED PROOFS. 

old fool, in my dotage, — but I'm hale yet ! I'll live, a 
scare-crow, to keep you out of this house, this ten years ! 
You thought you was husbanding your own property — 
but I'll give it to the Board of Foreign Missions first 
— to the Esquimaux Indians — throw it to the devil, be- 
fore you shall have it. Good night, Mr Burnet." 

" Good night, sir." 

Mary, as in duty bound, waited upon Burnet to the 
door. Many a time and oft had that door been a wit- 
ness to the fact, that the last five minutes of a visit, (oft- 
entimes unaccountably stretched to sixty,) are, like the 
postscript of a letter, appropriated to the real business 
— as if the parties forgot it, till about the close of the 
interview. Her face, as plain as looks could speak, said 
"One kind word before we part:" Burnet obstinately 
refused to understand — and did not even repeat his 
"good night" at the door. It was fairly closed, and the 
key turned, before Mary felt that she was really alone — 
that he had taken his leave — perhaps his final leave. 

" A passionate, hard-hearted brute, to leave me thus ! " 
she exclaimed, " I'll never speak to him again ! " 

" That's right ! " cried her father, wiio caught only 
the last sentence. " That's right, my daughter ! " 

" I wish I could hate him !" said Mary, as she closed 
her chamber-door. Oh ! a single tear would have been 
to her a pearl of great price — but not one could be per- 
suaded from her eye-lids. 

She threw herself upon the bed and instituted a self- 
examination. Judgment on the bench,— present, Bur- 
net, appellant, by his attorney, Dan Cupid ; and Mary 
Williams, respondent. Cupid argued like an adept, for 
his absent client — Mary made but a feeble defence — 
and admitted that she might have been partially in fault. 



LOVE AND LAW. 21 

The case was submitted to Conscience, who returned 
a verdict of Guilty against the maiden. Mercy, who is 
always ready to temper the severity of Justice, brought 
a shower of tears to her relief, and Mary wept herself 

to sleep. 

****** 

Cupid is a knavish lad, 

Thus to make poor law^yers mad. 

" Morning her sweets was flinging," — but in the dis- 
tribution she certainly forgot to be impartial. The vin- 
egar aspect of Timothy Burnet, Esq. as he sat in his 
office, on the morning succeeding his ejectment from 
Old Williams's premises, was proof positive, that he, at 
least, had been neglected l3y Madam Aurora, in her dis- 
pensation of " sweets." 

"A heartless old reprobate, — but his daughter — Mary ! 
— there's the unkindest cut of all ! To think she should 
have concealed the true state of things, and let me get 
into such a confoundedly awkward scrape. ' Kick him 
out!' — that's the thanks T get, for serving another at 
my own cost — for compromising a suit, which, properly 
nursed, would have bought me a house. Williams vs. 
Giles — but I've done with him. I'll send old Hunks 
this package, and think no more of him or his daugh- 
ter. Here, Peter! (His Mercury, who was improving 
the advantages of the situation of a lawyer's boy, by play- 
ing in the street, pocketed his marbles, and shuffled into 
the office.) Take this packet over to Mr Williams's." 

" Ask for Miss Mary, and wait for an answer, sir? " 

''No, you fool, can't you read the direction? Lucky 
that these things don't disturb my philosophy. They 
would completely unhinge some men for business; but 
give me as much to do every day, as I have had this 



22 CORRECTED PROOFS. 

morning, and I won't think of Moll Williams, or any 
other she, twice in a twelvemonth. *-Well, Tipstaff, have 
you served it?" 

"If you'd just take the trouble to look it over," said 
the sheriff's deputy, as he entered, looking more than 
usually pleased, and handing the attorney a paper. " I'm 
thinking this won't do to arrest Joe Barnes upon, any 
how." 

" ' Slipriff either of his Deputies often 

requested — never paid the same — neglects and refuses so 

to do goods, default thereof — body of the 

said — Mary Vf illiams ! ' Pshaw ! I never gave you 
this!" 

" You certainly did." 

*' Glad to hear you so decided, Mary. Glad to hear 
what you said last night. I knew you'd come to your 
senses after a while, and see through that rogue of an 
attorney." 

Mary spilled the coffee, and scalded her fingers — look- 
ed white — then red — then white again. 

" Mean to stick to it, don't you?" 

" No — ah — yes." 

" That's right — never speak to him again — eh? " 

*' Yes— that is—" 

"Eh?" 

" No, father." 

*' See that you don't — never speak to a fortune- 
hunter — never look at one ! " 

" I don't think Mr Burnet a fortune-hunter." 

" No ! you hate him for something else then ? A 
scoundrel ! If Mr Burnet has presumed — if — if, I'll 
shoot him ! What do you hate him for ? " 



LOVEANDLAW. 23 

"I don't." 

" What ! No and yes — yes and no — you do hate him, 
and you don't ! Law puzzles me, but woman is worse. 
If law is the devil, woman is legion ! " 

The old gentleman commenced pacing the room in a 
paroxysm. Burnet's package came in ; as Williams 
opened it, a note fell to the floor. 

"For me, father?" 

" Yes — if your name is Tobias Williams," 

If there is anything in this world particularly and 
vexatiously provoking, it is, to be obliged to keep one's 
hands off a newspaper, till some a-b-c-denarian has 
spelled out all the advertisements, — or to wait a weekv 
for the contents of a note, in which you are equally inter- 
ested with the man who is proceeding to inform himself 
of them, as deliberately as if his life were to end with 
the pronunciation of the last word. While Father Wil- 
liams placed his arm-chair at the window, drew forth 
his spectacles, wiped and adjusted them, held the paper 
now near, now farther from his nose, till he ascertained 
the exact focus, Mary could hardly forbear snatching 
the paper from his hand. 

" Let me read it first, papa." No answer. 

" Do let me see it, father." 

" After me madam, if at all." 

''Oh dear!" And she fidgetted in her chair, and 
looked so vexed. " Well, if I am not going to see it 
to-day, read it aloud, will you, father ? " 

" Eh-em. ' When you instructed me to commence 
a suit against Giles, the prosecution of your claim for 
damages involved the title of your estate. I found, 
when you purchased of Bangs, that he gave you only a 
quit-claim. He bought of John Bradley, whose wife 



24 CORRECTED PROOFS. 

never relinquished her right ; and she being dead, it is 
now on her son.' What, o?i her son, — what does that 
mean, Mary?" 

''Let me see. It's in^ father — in her son." 
"/« her son. Well, what does that mean? " 
" Never mind, father, read on." 
" ' In her son. If Giles had been put to a legal de- 
fence, his lawyer would have discovered the flaw in your 
title, and have purchased the claim, or bid for it, which 
would have compelled us to make a great sacrifice of 
money and trouble to obtain a clear deed. I was 
afraid to let the case lay open a day, lest he should dis- 
cover, and take advantage of the fact, — and therefore 
settled with Giles, to your great dissatisfaction. I was 
afraid to trust even you with the secret, until I had 
obtained a quit-claim of young Bradley — in which I 
have just succeeded. For the expenses — you may 
reimburse me, whenever you can spare the money from 
your benevolent purposes to the' — What ! " 
" Esquimaux Indians." 
" What the devil does that mean ? " 
''Why, my dear, gentle papa, you swore roundly, last 
night, to Mr Burnet, that you would give your money 
to the Esquimaux, before, as your son-in-law, he should 
touch a dollar of it." 

" Did I ? I'd forgotten it. Mary ! " 
" Sir ! " 

" Look me directly in the face. Now tell me, did 
you ever tell Tim Burnet what I thought of him in that 
Giles business 1 " 
" Never." 

" Are you sure? — no evasion now." 
" I certainly never did." 



ENNUI. 



25 



" Then I think better of him than if he had visited 
the house, knowing what I thought and said. We acted 
like fools, last night." 

" We indeed !" 

" Give me my hat and cane, Mary." 

" Where are you going, father ?" 

" Don't ask so many questions, girl." 

* * * * » * 

'*Time flies." 

" Oh, gran'pa ! Let me look at the pictures in the 
big Bible. What's that, gran'pa?" 
" That's writing." 
*' What does it say ?" 
" ' Timothy Burnet to Mary Williams.' " * 
"Who is Mary Williams, gran'pa?" 
" Go ask your mother, you young blockhead." 



ENNUI 



Was never better defined, than when Bulwer called it 
" The Ghost of Time murdered." We believe, how- 
ever, that it is not a ghost of frequent appearance in 
New England. The characteristic trait of a Yankee is 
his activity and wish for constant employment. So 
much is this an universal trait, that an idler among the 
descendants of the puritans is out of his latitude. A 
mark is set upon him — the fact of living without visible 
means of subsistence is considered a suspicious circum- 
stance. Among the questions for which New England- 
ers are proverbial, " What does he do ?" is the one 
above others peculiar to them, both for its phraseology 

and import. 
S 



56 CORRECTED PHOOFS. 



THE BUSTLING MAN. 

Yonder he comes, the Bustling Man, 

How stately fast he stalks, 
His two arms pendant, to and fro 

Are swinging as he walks ; 
By weight of business on his hands 

Those arms have stiff become — 
As lines are to their tension stretched, 

By weight of leaden plumb. 

At nine and ninety Fahrenheit 

The subtile mercury stands ; 
Yet still he plies his busy feet. 

And still he swings his hands ; 
Big drops of sweat coagulate 

Upon his rosy front, 
Yet doth he not his speed abate — 

A world depends upon't i 

Down State Street now he looomotes — 

They open him a road ; 
To stand in such a walker's way 

Would sudden death forebode ; 
The broker and the monied man 

Forget the fall of stocks, 
To dodge the swinging of those arms. 

Like pendula of clocks- 

The pillars of the " Monster Bank" 

Are granite-cold with fright ; 
For should with them in contact come 

That awful walking wight. 
The " Hero's " labor were half done, 

And half his fame bereft — 
There would not be a single stone 

Upon another left ! 



THE BUSTLING MAN. 27 

Of wind there's not a particle. 

The air is still as death — 
Yet still he walks, that bustling man, 

And is not out of breath ! 
Sol's rays are perpendicular. 

His arid heat intense; 
Our walking biped's motions yet 

Are in the present tense ; — 

He walks ! will he forever walk 

In geometric pace, 
Just like a pair of compasses 

Accomplishing a race ? 
Now dexter, ambidexter now, 

His pedal props move on — 
God save th' eternal walking one ! 

Will he have never done ? 

Thank God ! The capsill of Long Wharf 

Has stopped him with a shock ; 
He walks upon the pavement, but 

He cannot walk the dock ! 
His arms are swinging still, but he 

Is letting off his steam; 
I'll speak to him, before again 

He starts his magic team. 

" Say, stranger of the lengthy leg. 

What is your cause of haste ? 
Do you from Biddle come, express. 

That thus the streets you've raced ? 
,0r, is your father very sick ? 

Or mother next to dead ?" 
** JVb sir, Pm trying to digest 

A loaf of Graham Bread ."* 



28 CORRECTED PROOFS 



THE PARTNERS. 

New Store. Smith & Brown respectfully inform the pub- 
lic of Cedarville and vicinity, and their friends generally, that 
they have taken the Store on Main Street, a few doors from the 
Meeting-House, where they have on hand and for sale, every de- 
scription of goods, at prices as low as at any other place, in city 
or country. 

The above, with the customary abundant sprinkling of 
italics, capitals, and full-faced type, was the only new 
advertisement in the columns of the Cedarville Univer- 
sal Advertiser, on the morning of the 5th of May, 18 — . 
" Who is Smith & Brown?" inquired the old ladies of 
the village, as their eyes wandered from the record of 
the deaths to the advertisement below; and '' Who i5 
Smith & Brown?" echoed the young ladies, who, after 
studying the Hymeneal Register, glanced also at the 
advertisement. Methinks the reader is inquiring too 
— who are the Smith and Brown, introduced by you 
so abruptly? Patience, gentle sir, — if sir you be, — if 
madam, it is of no use to preach patience, — patience, 
and you will, in proper time, become acquainted with 
The Partners. 

Smith and Brown had decided to connect themselves 
in business, and astonish the natives of some country 
town, with a store a touch above any thing of the kind 
out of the limits of the metropolis. Cedarville happen- 
ed to be the place pitched upon, and so rapidly was 
their migration effected, and the business of opening 
performed, that, until they were ready for customers, 
not more than half the women within ten miles of their 



THE PARTNERS. 29 

Store knew that such a thing was in contemplation. 
The Cedarville Universal Advertiser had the merit, for 
once, of containing something of which the universe 
was not previously advised ; and the gossips of Cedar- 
ville were nearly distracted — such a march had been 
stolen u^jon them ! They fell in readily with the opin- 
ion of Old Pimento, at the old stand, that, as the new 
store '' sprung up like a mushroom, in a night, it would 
disappear too, between two days." Commence business 
without making six months preparatory talk ! the thing 
was preposterous and unprecedented. But they suc- 
ceeded, nevertheless. The young women had become 
tired of shop- worn commodities, especially when sold 
by a crusty old Benedict, and the temptations of new 
goods and the new faces of two young bachelors were 
irresistible. AH the influence of the editor of the 
Universal Advertiser was on the side of the new store, for 
the " trader " at the old one never could be persuaded, 
that in a town where there v/as but one store, there 
was any need of advertising. Even now, that there 
were two, he would not be provoked into a paper war 
with the new comers, whose advertisem.ents added some 
ten dollars to the annual income of the Advertiser — no 
inconsiderable item, by the way, in the receipts of a 
village editor. For this sum they were allowed a square, 
which, in the country, means a page of the paper. 

Awful was the schism created in Cedarville by the 
new store ! Old Mr Pimento stopped his paper, be- 
cause he liked an independent press, and the Advertiser 
had had the impudence to publish Smith & Brown's 
advertisements, to his manifest injury. Such is the 
general idea of newspaper independence — subscribers 
wish to see an editor untrammelled, and therefore 



30 CORRECTED PROOFS. 

relieve him of the encumbrance of their names, upon 
less grievous causes than that which induced Pimento 
to discontinue the Cedarville Universal Advertiser. 
The old ladies sided with Mr Pimento, the young ones 
belonged to the other faction, and the men stood neu- 
tral, or moved as driven by wife, daughter, or wife in- 
tended. Such was the posture of things in the town of 
Cedarville, the parties alternately going up and down, 
as Old Pimento sold the best molasses, or the other house 
the best bargains, when affairs began to come upon the 
carpet, more directly interesting to Smith and Brown ^ 
and therefore to the readers of our veritable history. 
The star of the young firm had been some days on the 
ascendant. After a good day's work, both partners 
waited in the store, as if each had something to tell the 
other, with which it would not answer to trust any walls 
but their own. 

Each made aw^kv/ard work of his communication ; but 
we shall omit the stammering preface, and state only 
the substance of both their confessions, which was that 
each had come to the conclusion, that when it was said 
" it is not good for man to be alone," partnerships in 
business were not the associations deemed necessary. 
Though Satan is ever fond of rebuking sin, yet neither 
party could condemn the other for the intended crime 
of matrimony, in the abstract ; but each thought his 
disapprobation of the taste of the other, in the choice 
of an accomplice. 

" Humph ! " said Smith to himself; " Brown is deter- 
mined, then, to throw himself away upon that low-bred 
dowdy. She is as poor as she is avaricious." 

" Well," said Brown, with a shrug; " Mr Smith may 
yoke himself for life to purse-pride and expectations, if 



THE PARTNERS. 31 

he chooses. It is no business of mine." And so they 
parted for the night. 

* * # * ^ # 

Married. In B , by Rev. Mr Thunipcushion, Mr John 

Smith, of Cedarviile, of the firm of Smith & Brown, to Miss 
Ana Matilda, only daughter of the Hon. CrcEsiis Ingot, of B . 

In E , Mr David Brown, of Cedarviile, of the fii'm of 

Smith & Brown, to Miss Mary Tidd. 

Another feather floated in the cap of the editor of 
the Cedarviile Universal Advertiser, — for the above 
interesting item of intelligence beamed first upon Cedar- 
viile through its columns, so silently had every thing- 
been conducted. In dilating upon the square inch of 
cake which backed the request for insertion, Mr Editor 
ground out the only original article which had appeared 
in his columns, since, six weeks before, Mr Allen's 
boy supplied a " Narrow Escape," by cutting his finger 
with a case-knrfe. 

The effect of the announcement upon the inhabitants 
of Cedarviile was the breaking up, in a great measure, 
of the party divisions.* The old ladies were indignant 
that this news had burst upon the community, without 
their having had so much as a nibble of it in advance 
of the general promulgation ; the unengaged young 
ladies, each of whom had, secretly and in her own mind, 
appropriated one of the firm to herself, began to have a 
manifest leaning to the Pimento party ; and the mar- 
ried and engaged young ladies, who stuck to the firm 
in hopes of being invited to their parties, were in the 
minority. Things began to look squally, when, as is 
often the case in emergencies, a something was found 
to stem the current, and save the fallinor fortunes of the 
house of Smith &l Brown. Faster than the slow heels 
of the carrier boy circulated the Cedarviile Universal 



32 CORRECTED PROOFS. 

Advertiser about the village, the intelligence flew orally, 
that Smith & Brown were " giving a treat." This at 
once formed a new accession to the new store party, 
as every man in a New England village, in 18 — , would 
drink, where liquor ran without money and without 
price ; and every boy would be on hand, to eat the 
sugar from the bottom of the tumblers, suck the toddy- 
sticks and long to be men — that being as near drinking 
as boys were permitted to go — their elders sagely back- 
ing their own examples, by warning hoys not to drink 
spirit. They manage these things better now-a-days. 
The editor gained great credit by an impromptu 
toast, concocted during all the night before, in which 
he hoped the " house of Smith &> Brown would fare none 
the worse for having taken sleeping partners." Pimento, 
who found his way into the store for the first time, went 
home growling that they " would spoil the trade, if they 
did not reduce their spirit more." Upon reaching his 
own store, he put another gallon of alcohol into each of 
his bar-casks of water and alcohol, swept a peck of flies 
from his windows, and some of the dust off his shelves. 
" Will they give a party, I wonder ?" Here the Ce- 
darville Universal Advertiser could not forestall the 
women, who are the exclusive venders of this sort of 
news ; and the women soon got hold of circumstantial 
evidence, that at Smith's house something was in prepa- 
ration. Mrs Smith had sent to one neighbor for eight 
quarts of milk, and her " help^' had borrowed another's 
hearts and rounds. *' Shall I get an invite?" was the 
next question — but the worthy folk were kept but little 
while in suspense. The shop-boy of Smith &. Brown 
soon left printed '' invites " at every house in the village, 
not excepting those of the Pimento-ites, and that of 



THE PARTNERS. 33 

Old Pimento himself. Business-like, these invitations 
were issued in the name of the firm. 

* * * * * * 

It was over. Old Pimento, who had lingered, the 
last of the guests, as if determined to do his full share 
in eating out the substance of the young men, had at 
last taken his hat. Mr and Mrs Smith sat alone. 

" My dear," said the lady, " I do not see why you 
would invite all that canaille to our house." 

" Policy, Matilda. I wish to become popular with 
the Cedarville people." 

*' Well, I don't like to be bored to death. I hope you 
have not so soon forgotten my feelings and my standing 
in society. My father, Mr Ingot, was never so anxious 
to please the rabble." 

" Mrs Smith, I hope you have not so far forgotten my 
interest as to stand in the way of my business. The 
distant jingle of your father's gold will not support usJ' 

Mrs Ann Matilda Smith sobbed hysterically. 

# * * * * * 

" David," said Mrs Brown to her husband, as they 
w^alked home, " I am afraid I have done you no credit 
to-night — I always told you I was unused to society." 

*' Why, Mary, I thought you succeeded to admiration 
with the villagers — mothers and daughters." 

" Oh yes, and I have many pressing invitations to visit 
them. But I am dreadfully afraid of Mrs Smith. She 
came and sat by me to-night, and said something about 
the Great Unknown. I didn't make any answer, and 
then she said that Waverley alone is enough to set him 
up. What did she mean, David ? Is there to be another 
store in the village ? I'm sure I'm sorry if there is. 
I told her I did not know Mr Waverley." 



34 CORRECTED PROOFS. 

Brown gently explained her mistake to her. It was a 
bitter evening, in conclusion, for both partners — one had 
to drive away his wife's hysterics with volatile salts and 
promises of indulgence — the other to console an intelli- 
gent, though uncultivated mind, for the lack of that 
information which one evening had convinced her was 
all-essential to her creditable appearance. 

On the morrow, Mrs Ann Matilda Smith went back 
to the house of her father, to recover, as she said, from 
the effects of an excessive infliction of rusticity. She 
was not missed, except by her husband, for, truth to tell, 
she did not win many hearts at " the party." Weeks 
passed, and simple Mary Brown grew daily in the good 
graces of the dwellers in Cedarville. The parson's wife 
*' thought it a pity she had been neglected," but deemed 
her an intelligent, lady-like young woman, nevertheless. 
Some others might have made the same remark — but all 
loved her ; and through her popularity, added to pre* 
existing circumstances, the tide set sadly against the 
store of Mr Pimento. At the end of a few weeks, Mrs 
Ann Matilda Smith returned. 

" My dear, I have brought you a present." 

*' Thank you for returning yourself, Matilda, before 
I open the package, lest you should accuse me of selfish- 
ness, in thanking you afterward." The direction was 
in the compting-house hand of Mr Ingot. Smith broke 
the seal, and found instruments possessing him of a large 
landed property, and a check for several thousands. 
*' Matilda, after the unthinking and cruel taunt I gave 
you a few weeks since, I cannot accept this." 

" Mr Smith !— Mr Smith !" 
^ There was something hysterical in her tone, — and 



THE PARTNERS. 35 

Smith hastily interrupted, " allow me at lea^t to secure 
this to you, I — *' 

" No ! no ! take it as I offer it, or — '' 

Poor Smith ! He plied his wife alternately with vola- 
tile and sugared words ; — the latter of the two remedies 
brought her to, because they imported an acceptance of 
her father's present. It is said of his Satanic Majesty 
and the wight who accepts his favors, that the latter 
becomes bound to him. I do not intend to compare Mrs 
Smith to the devil, — but her present was the purchase- 
money of the — inexpressibles. Smith was sold to her 
from that day. 

* * ♦ » » » 

" These people pay a great deal of attention to your 
partner's wife, Mr Smith." 

*' They would pay you the same, my dear, if you would 
accept it." 

** But I shall not. Who can endure to drink yopon 
tea, out of earthen cups — and hear disquisitions upon 
sage-cheese, stocking-yarn, the price of eggs, and the 
raising of poultry, — I cannot, Mr Smith." 

" Mrs Brown does." 

" Mrs Brown ! It is her element — the hateful, ignorant 
creature, I desire you will not ask her or her husband 
to the house again." 

'* He is my partner, my dear." 

" I don't see why you need such a partner. You don't 
want his capital, certainly." 

*' His capital is experience. He owns nothing, but 
receives a share of the profits for his services." 

** Indeed ! Well, I'm sure you can hire a good clerk 
cheaper, and not be obliged to court Brown or his igno- 
rant wife. I wish you would dissolve, Mr Smith. / do 



36 CORRECTED PROOFS. 

not like the idea of finding Mr Brown capital to trade 
upon." Poor Smith ! 

Dissolution. The connexion in business, heretofore exist- 
ing under the firm of Smith & Brown, is this day, by mutual con- 
sent, dissolved. 

Mutual — Yes, that is the word, when a strong man 
kicks a weaker out of doors ; and the above is a literal 
transcript from the Cedarville Universal Advertiser. 

One of the sleeping partners had upset the house, thus 
making our editorial friend's toast as mal a-pro-pos as 
were his editorials. Mr Brown and his poor ignorant 
wife made their round of calls — stepped into the stage 
with light hearts, and a purse which honest gains had 
pretty well ballasted, and bade adieu to Cedarville. 
Nothing worthy of note occurred at their departure, 
except that the editor of the Cedarville Advertiser stop- 
ped the stage before his door, to ask Brown if he might 
not send him the paper — to which he, the said Brown, 
maliciously answered, that he would pay him the price of 
it, if he would keep it away. Mr Editor, as a guardian 
of public morals, was not profanely inclined, but, upon 
this occasion, he could not refrain from giving his opin- 
ion, that Brown " was a d d uncivil fellow, and as 

illiterate as his wife." Every body in the village regret- 
ted their departure except Mrs Smith, Mr Editor, and 
Old Pimento. The latter had reason to be pleased, for 
Brown's withdrawal would, he knew, essentially weaken 
the new store faction. 

The tide turned into its old channel, and Pimento 
soon saw all the old faces back to his counter, — except, 
perhaps, a few whose wives trimmed their bonnets and 
caps like Mrs Smith, and esteemed it an honor to get a 



THE PARTNERS. 37 

nod from her. In proportion as business lessened, she, 
thinking the portion she brought inexhaustible, increas- 
ed her expenses. She figured in the streets of Cedar- 
ville, in dresses which would have attracted notice for 
their expensive quality, in Washington Street or Broad- 
way. Clouds of the family connexions, and the family 
connexions' connexions of the Ingots, settled on Smith 
to rusticate, devouring his substance like a swarm of lo- 
custs. And every city carriage which rolled to his door, 
rolled away the patronage of some villager who prefer- 
red purchasing sugar af Old Pimento, to being hurried- 
ly served by the now exclusive and genteel Mr Smith. 
****** 

As Pimento was spelling out the Cedarville Adverti- 
ser, — for, since the editor had returned to his allegi- 
ance, he had again subscribed, — he chuckled over the 
following notice : — "All persons indebted to John Smith 
are notified that his books and accounts are assigned to 
Croesus Ingot, to whom immediate payment must be 
made. Creditors may become parties, by signing the 
assignment." " Holloa ! neighbor," he shouted to a 
passer-by, who had been one of the new store party, 
" why can't you tell me how Smith & Wife sell London 
and French Prints ! " '' Smith & Wife's Store " had 
become the cant term. 

# * * * * * 

Years had passed. Two persons accidentally met on 
'Change. There was a look of uncertain recognition. 

"Brown?" 

"Smith?" 

A hearty shaking of hands followed. 

" How is your lady. Brown ? " 

" Well. She is now acquainted with Mr Waverley. " 



38 CORRECTED PROOFS. 

" And mine has forgotten her hysterics. " 

The four met at the city residence of Mr Brown, who 
had, by industry, become possessed of a handsome prop- 
erty. Smith, also, taught wisdom by his reverses, had 
retrieved his pecuniary affairs. The husbands came 
from the library together. 

" Ladies," said Smith, " we have again entered into 
copartnership. Matilda, do you think you can now 
invite that hateful Mrs Brown to our house 1 " 

" Mary," said Brown, " are you now afraid of Mrs 
Smith ? " 

It is unnecessary to say that explanations had taken 
place. Mrs Smith was not naturally vain, nor was Mrs 
Brown ever doivdy, though once ignorant. Both were 
placed, by marriage, in situations for which they were 
unfit, and each had learned to adapt herself to her situ- 
ation. Mrs Smith learned the thrift and pleasant man- 
ners of Mary Brown — and if the latter did not acquire 
all the shining accomplishments of Mrs Smith, she at 
least became deeply read enough to make her an agree- 
able companion for her husband, and to place her above 
the danger of appearing to ridiculous disadvantage. Of 
the two, Mrs Smith had, in her education, cost her hus- 
band the most. One partner married above, the other 
below, his station in life. 

In the last connexion in business, the sleeping part- 
ners have proved such valuable auxiliaries, that their 
husbands' paper is quite as good as that of any Ingot on 
'Change. Old Pimento buys his goods of the import- 
ing house of Smith & Brown, who advertise to country 
traders in the columns of theCedarville Universal Adver- 
tiser ; and the editor of that respectable paper carries 
his head higher than ever. 



DEGREES OF DRUNKENNESS. 39 



DEGREES OF DRUNKENNESS. 

" First, Fresh ; second, Emphatic ; third. Glorious ; fourth, 
Uproarious ; lastly, Insensible.'''' — Fjroucs of Puck. 



That rosy cheek and sparkling e'e 
Prove jolly Bacchus in possession ; — 

Premonitory of a spree. 

They mark the aspect of a Fresh'un. 

He fills the goblet to the brim, 
Drinks, and refills, 

Until his happy senses swim. 
And his head reels ; 

Then thinks his every thought is attic. 

And soon from fresh, becomes 

EMPHATIC. 

As in a crowded house, the throng 
Fast to the door are borne along, 

Shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip — 
All the ideas by liquor wrought 
Are in a chaos, sudden brought 

Upon the burdened lip ; — 
Justling, pushing, 
Outward rushing, 
The crowd each others' steps embarrass ; 
So one word o'er another trips. 
Upon the emphatic bibber's lips ; 
Though pressed, not half ex-pressed, in \ 
You strive his meaning to attain ; 
His words but put himself in pain. 
And serve the listener to harrass ; — 
Forthwith he rises to the squall-ica, 
As if each word were in italics : 



40 CORRECTED PROOFS, 

With gestures odd, and upraised hand. 
He emphasizes if and and ; — 
Till to all present, 'tis notorious. 
That he has reached the order 

GLORIOUS. 

As difficulties but incite 

Th' impetuous mind to farther daring, — 
His swollen tongue though oft he bite. 

Yet will he still continue swearing ; — 
While deeper his potations grow, 
His patriotism 'gins to flow ; — 
He damns the fool who does not think 
A man to drunkenness should drink ; — 
In politics, the op 'site party 
Is visited with curses hearty ; — 
Till his noise shews he has from glorious. 
Gone a step farther, to 

trPROARIOXJS. 

Wake snakes I Huzza ! waste and confusion, 
By-words, and shouts, and noisy revel, — 

Wassail and wine in sad profusion 

Have with his senses played the devil ! 

Windows are smashed, and glasses broken ; 

Too drunk to speak, no longer spoken. 

His oaths are bellowed, such a rate ou 

As to astonish even Satan, — 

Until, with liquor gorged full. 

He drops him down 

INSENSIBLE. 

Here, Bacchi plenus, full of wiae. 
Behold the ' human form divine 1 * 
Like leathern bag of ages back. 
His hide is but a liquor sack ! 



A WINTER IN CEDARVILLE. 41 



A WINTER IN CEDARVILLE. 

"Is he handsome?" "Old?" "Young?" "Married?" 
" Single ? " " Is he a Collegian ? " "A Doctor ? " "A 
Lawyer ? " "A Student of Divinity ? " " Is he tall ? " 
"Short?" "Stout-built?" "Slender?" "Genteel?" 
*' Is he—" 

Here the querists talked so fast and so confusedly, 
that it is impossible to transfer their questions to paper. 
Mr Pimento, who had just stalked into the room, in all 
the dignity — or perhaps we should say, in all the digni- 
ties, of Chairman of the Selectmen, Chairman of the 
School-Committee, of the Board of Health, of the 
Overseers of the Poor, and of the Assessors, was dumb- 
founded. Ever since the Roman matrons bored the 
senate of the city of the seven hills, women have been 
curious upon the proceedings of deliberative assemblies. 
We say ever since — not that women were not curious 
before Romulus killed Remus for jumping over a mud 
wall, but because the instance above cited is one of the 
first authentic ones on record. It was known in the 
quiet village of Cedarville, that a committee meeting 
was to be held on the afternoon of the 25th of October, 
18 — , for the selection and engagement of a schoolmaster. 
On the same afternoon, the fates so ordered it, that Mrs 
Pimento invited some score of her female friends, mar- 
ried and unmarried, to make way with her husband's 
Young Hyson. When that Caleb duotem came from 
the meeting, he was assailed, as we have seen, by the 

women, who, whatever be their usual developement of 

4* 



42 CORRECTED PROOFS. 

the organ of veneration, certainly venture upon more 
liberties with public dignitaries, than the other sex dare 
indulge in. We shall here leave Mr Pimento, to an- 
swer the questions of his wife's friends as best he may, 
and go back to the meeting of the committee. 

Each of the Boards for the management of the mu- 
nicipal affairs of Cedarville, acted essentially as " an 
unit." As we have nothing to do with any branch of 
the government but the school-committee, our readers 
may take that as an example. Imprimis, then, there 
was the chairman, Mr Pimento, elected to the school- 
committee on the strength of his white hairs, and his 
comfortable property ; the latter being proof conclusive 
that he was excellent at a bargain, and would, of course, 
provide economically for the education of the youth of 
Cedarville. He was farther sure of a majority of votes 
for any office in the gift of the people, because he had 
either mortgages on half the estates in the village, or 
running accounts against their proprietors. Their 
suffrages were free certainly, for the editor of the Ce- 
darville Universal Advertiser maintained so, in an edi- 
torial article a column long, which contained only that 
one idea. And who shall gainsay the assertions of a 
newspaper editor ? Editors are infallible — therefore it 
is plain, that although the presentation of an inconve- 
nient account, or the immediate and inevitable fore- 
closing of a mortgage, was the consequence of a vote 
against Mr Pimento, the suffrages of the voters of Ce- 
darville were free nevertheless. 

Second on the board was the Rev. Mr Monotonous. 
Mr Monotonous was in the daily habit of receiving little 
presents from, and in the weekly habit of dining with, 
Mr Pimento. The third was our old friend the editor 



A WINTER IN CEDARVILLE. 43 

of the Advertiser. Mr Pimento took his paper, and 
gave store pay therefor, which brought the editor afore- 
said one hundred and ninety-eight dollars in debt on the 
first day of January, annually ; the price of the paper 
being deducted from the account. The fourth on the 
board was mortgaged to Pimento, house and land. It 
is easy to see why the board was an unit, and its votes 
unanimous. The first candidate on the list for the va- 
cant birth of schoolmaster, was Mr Dilworth Accidence, 
who passed the ordeal of Mr Pimento's examination as 
follows : — 

" You're a young man, Mr Accidence ? " 

" Twenty-five." 

*' Born in New England, I take it ? " 

*' Yes sir." 

" College larnt?" 

" Yes sir." 

" What persuasion 1 " 

Persuasion, in New England, means religious belief. 
Accidence knew that his fate depended upon his answer, 
but he knew nothing of the religious sentiments of his 
examiner. Fortune, however, helped him at a pinch, 
and his reply would not have disgraced the Delphic 
oracle, being capable of any interpretation. 

" The religion of our fathers." 

*' Hem-em. You say you are college larnt. Be you 
practical ? — good at cipherin' 1 " 

" Yes sir." 

''What books do you use?" (Pimento had a pile 
of school-books on hand.) 

*' What the committee direct." 

" Hem — what'il you teach for ? " 

" What the town has been in the habit of paying." 



44 CORRECTED PROOFS. 

*' Hope you pretty generally enjoy good health." 

'' Yes sir, I always enjoy good health." 

" Got a recommend ? " 

" Yes sir." 

" Very well. Mr. Accidence, you may go out a few 
minutes." 

Mr. Pimento wiped and adjusted his spectacles, and 
spelled out a certificate of three lines, in the incredibly 
short space of five minutes. " A hem-em-em, (and he 
took off his spectacles,) Gentlemen, (here he rose,) I 
think the master went through his examination with a 
great deal of despatch and satisfaction. It appears to 
me, ahem — it appears to your cheerman, that he is every 
way quawlified, and I conceit we can't do better than 
to hire him to once. He is orthodox in religion, and 
will be a great addition to the singin' seats, Sundays. 
Then he ain't got no new-fangled notions about books, 
to run folks into debt, and we sha'n't lose no time by 
his bein' sick. He answered very correctly — as well as 
I could have done myself, — so I'm ready to hire him. 
Eh-em-em. What do you say, gentlemen, shall we take 
him without lookin' further? " 

The vote was unanimous, of course, and Mr Acci- 
dence was called in and engaged (we dare not say upon 
what terms, lest it should cause a shade of doubt to rest 
on our veracity). Mr Editor, then, in the hope of securing 
a correspondent to the Advertiser, volunteered to shew 
the schoolmaster about town, and Mr Pimento invited 
the two men of letters to call at his house in the evening. 
Now, if you please, reader, we will slip back to Mr 
Pimento's. The party had just began to renew their 
attacks upon their host, when, to the infinite relief of 
th^t worthy, the door opened, and Mr Editor announced 



A WINTER IN CEDARVILLE. 45 

Mr Dilworth Accidence, introducing him to each per- 
son present, in succession. Oh ! there is no describing 
the sensation that is created in a country village by the 
arrival of a young — tolerably pretty — unmarried peda- 
gogue. The village belles draw odious comparisons 
between the elegant exotic and the rustics indigenous 
to the soil ; and the village beaux silently swear horri- 
bly jealous oaths at the new comer. The ceremony of 
introduction being over, Mr Editor, who officiated as 
stir-him-up-with-a-long-pole-exhibitor of the lion, seated 
him, and then himself took a seat by his side ; and the 
ladies composed themselves in their chairs again. One 
who had a pretty foot, managed to protrude it a little 
beyond her gown, — another with a swan-like neck, sat 
a model for a goose, — the back of another who had a 
delightfully taper waist, seemed to have cut all acquaint- 
ance with the back of her chair, — a tremendous India 
carved comb, which had strayed to Cedarville, came 
near putting out Dilworth's eyes, by the anxiety of its 
wearer to compel the pedagogue to look at it, — Miss 
A's beautiful hand was exhibited in a thousand ways, — 
Miss B's beautiful new reticule was continually in re- 
quisition, — Miss C's cambric kerchief scattered the 
odors of otto of rose incessantly, — Miss D's — but we 
have got far enough in the alphabet of the preliminary 
preparations of the "fishers of men," whose baits were 
preparing to capture the heart of Mr Dilworth Acci- 
dence. The beaux, whose arrival had occurred just 
before that of the schoolmaster, eyed the fire as if they 
were solving the question, how much ashes can be pro- 
duced from a given quantity of wood. Mr Pimento 
proudly regarded the wonderful schoolmaster as almost 
a being of his own creation ; and, as they sat in silence 



46 CORRECTED PROOFS. 

all, debated with himself how far the presence of the 
man who kept a room full of women silent, would have 
the same desirable effect upon Mrs Pimento, if he en- 
gaged him as a boarder. The ice was not broken till 
just at the moment the party broke up, when Messrs 
the Editor and Schoolmaster shewed signs of vitality, 
and commenced a critical discussion upon the merits 
of Perry's Spelling-book. Nothing remarkable occurred 
at the cloaking and hooding, except that Mr Accidence 
offered his services to see no damsel home, thereby 
offending just one more unmarried lady than he would 
have done by being gallant. And so they separated, 
the beaux relieved of a portion of their jealous fears, 
and assisting the belles, as they walked home, to expa- 
tiate upon the merits of the stranger ; and the married 
couples consulting how long they could in decency pro- 
crastinate a reciprocation of Mr and Mrs Pimento's 
civility. 

A volume would not contain the history of all the 
manoeuvres of all the fishers of men in Cedarville, to 
entrap Mr Dilworth Accidence. Miss Judith Prim- 
rose, 

*' Thin, spare and forty-three," 

president-ess of the Dorcas Society, proposed and car- 
ried a resolve, that gentlemen should be admitted as 
honorary members, and Mr Accidence was accordingly 
voted in. Miss Nightingale, leader of the female sing- 
ers in the village-choir, screamed herself hoarse in the 
Ode to Science, on the first occasion that the school- 
master was present at a sing; and Miss Seraphine 
Hugg, a young lady who at fifteen had read every novel 
within her reach, suddenly discovered that her educa- 
tion was lamentably deficient, and put herself under 



A WINTER IN CEDARVILLE. 47 

the tuition of Mr Accidence. The devout were unu- 
sually devout, when it was ascertained that the peda- 
gogue was a constant attendant at church and conven- 
ticle. A Reading Society was set on foot, because 
" the master" happened to drop a hint of the plan of 
one with which he had been formerly connected. 
Albums were piled upon his table by the dozen, and 
deep were the studies of the owners to torture his offer- 
ings into something tender, or to discover a hidden 
meaning. 

All this worked admirably well for the comfort of 
Mr Dil worth, who was no contemner of the good things 
of this life, as it gave him an entree to all houses where 
there were marriageable daughters, or daughters wlio 
longed to be thought so. But, with an enviable tact at 
" dodging the question," he kept all his admirers in 
suspense. No story of his devotedness to one particu- 
lar star could obtain among the women, as each was 
slow to believe he could be otherwise appropriated than 
to herself. So waned the winter. The boys improved 
wonderfully (so said the sisters,) under Dil worth's tuition 
— the girls, as girls in a district school always do, im- 
proved as they pleased. Examination-day came, and 
passed. The opinion of the generous public of Cedar- 
ville was unanimous in favor of our hero, and serious 
thoughts were entertained of getting up a subscription 
school, to be taught during the summer months. At 
any rate, the women were decided in opinion, that the 
least which could be done for so excellent an instructor, 
was to engage him to teach the school for the next 
winter. The Cedarville Universal Advertiser was 
grandiloquent in its praises. The school had not ap- 
peared so well " at any time within the memory of the 



48 CORRECTED PROOFS. 

oldest inhabitants." A ''sonnet" upon education in 
(reneral, and Mr Dilworth's school in particular, ap- 
peared in the columns of the same paper, and was at^ 
tributed to the pen of Miss Seraphine Hugg, who, by 
the way, we should have before stated, was the sister 
of our editorial friend. 

As a wind-up to the winter campaign agamst the ob- 
durate heart of Accidence, Mr Pimento gave the closmg 
party for the season. All the elite of the village fishers 
were there, desperately intent upon improving the last 
opportunity of angling for Mr Dilworth Accidence 
Generally punctual though he had hitherto been, at all 
such meetings, all the company were fully assembled 
on this occasion, and still the pedagogue came not. As 
a matter of course, the conversation turned altogether 
upon the expected guest. 

" He is a delightful man," said Miss Seraphme Hugg ; 
*' so sentimental ! " 

'' An excellent teacher," said Mr Pimento ; " so 
reasonable in his price ! " 

" A beautiful writer," said Mr Editor Hugg;^'you 
have undoubtedly noticed his articles in the Universal 
Advertiser, over the initials D. A." 

" Oh yes," cried all in chorus ; " an elegant writer ! " 

- A writer of the first chop," said Mr Pimento. 
'' He bought a whole rim of paper at my store." 

- And so charitable !" said Miss Judith Primrose, 
president-ess of the Dorcas Society. 

"And so devout '."said Miss Bunyan. " I really 
wish there were more such young men in town." 

" Amen ! " said Parson Monotonous, who recollected 
that Dilworth had on many occasions resolutely kept 
awake, when all the other males in the house had 



A WINTER IN CEDARVILLE. 49 

sunk to sleep, under the soporific influence of his 
sermons. 

*' And such a singer ! " said Miss Nightingale. 

*' He walks so gracefully ! " said Miss with the pretty 
foot. 

'' And has such an idea of symmetry ! " said she of 
the taper waist. 

" And such a taste for dress ! " said the lady of the 
India comb. 

" Such genteel manners ; he hands one over a stile 
so gallantly ! " said Miss A. of the beautiful hand. 

*' He picks up a handkerchief or a bag so politely !" 
said she of the elegant reticule. 

'' And he uses such splendid cologne ! " said Miss of 
the scented kerchief. 

" And reads with such an accent and emphasis ! " 
said Miss Indigo, who founded the Reading Society. 

*' And wrote so delightfully in my album ! " — " and 
in mine ! " — " and mine ! " — '' and mine ! " — they all 
cried, to the end of the chapter. 

It was unanimously resolved that the subscription 
school for the summer months should be got up, and 
Mr Editor Hugg had commenced to prepare a paper 
for signatures, when Mr Pimento's "help" made her 
appearance, with a note addressed to " Long-Primer 
Hugg, Esquire, Editor of the Cedarville Universal Ad- 
vertiser," who, after running it over, stated that it was 
an apology for non-appearance from Mr Accidence, and 
read as follows : — 

" * Mr Dilworth Accidence's compliments to Mr 
Hugg, and begs he will do him the favor to apologize 
to the ladies and gentlemen at Mr Pimento's this even- 



50 CORRECTED PROOFS. 

ing. His WIFE and family having just arrived in 
town — ' " &-C. &c. 

There was a dead pause. The mouths of the belles 
started agape with astonishment, the heads of the 
beaux rose with a simultaneous movement, and the 
smiles that irradiated their countenances, contrasted, 
oddly enough, with the lugubrious aspects of the fair 
half of the assembly. Silence at length was broken — 
conversation became animated — and how the deuce it 
took such a turn as it did, we cannot say, but the 
following, among other things, were certainly uttered. 

*' I^m not so sure about his charity," said Miss Ju- 
dith Primrose. *' He never gave the Dorcas Society 
any thing but a pair of cast-off pantaloons." 

" /don't think his writing so very finished and ele- 
gant," said Miss Seraphine Hugg. " Do you, brother ?" 

" Why — ah — really — no," said Long-Primer Hugg, 
Esquire, who vacillated between the fear of offending 
his sister, and the hope of obtaining something more 
from Mr Accidence, in the shape of " original matter." 

And all present nodded assent to the denunciation ! 

" He ha'n't j?mc? for that rim of paper yet," said Pi- 
mento, with a thought for his unmarried daughters. 

" I must acknowledge I have suspected his piety," 
said Miss Bunyan. 

" ' There is none that doeth good ; no, not one ! ' " 
said Parson Monotonous, with a long-drawn sigh, as he 
thought upon the two Misses Monotonous. 

" He always puts me out when I sing with him," 
aaid Miss Nightingale. 

" Such an awkward foot as he has ! " said Cin- 
derella. 

" Such a clumsy form ! " said the Taper Waist. 



A WINTER IN CEDARVILLE. 51 

*' Such a home-spun dress ! " said the India Comb. 

*' He ahuost broke my neck yesterday, in twitching 
me over the stile," said Little Hands. 

*' He broke the clasp of my indispensable," said Miss 
Reticule. 

" I should think his cologne was New England rum," 
said Scented Handkerchief." 

" He does so abuse the King's English ! " said Miss 
Indigo. 

" I am so sorry I let him scrawl in my album ! " 
— " and I ! "— '' and I ! "— '' and I ! "—and they were 
all sorry. 

" I don't know about his teachin' so reasonable," 
said Pimento. " Guess we paid him all he was worth." 

And so they all guessed, and Mr Editor Hugg's 
" Prospectus for a subscription school, to be taught by 
Mr Dilworth Accidence," was thrown under the table. 
****** 

Mr Dilworth Accidence was not long in finding 
which way the wind lay. The subscription school, in 
the hope of which he had invited his wife to Cedar- 
ville, was blown over, and he received not even an 
invitation to teach the next winter school, — and de- 
camped. He did not get away, however, before Mr 
Pimento made him pay for the rm of paper, and Long- 
Primer Hugg, Esq. took care to get fifty cents for DiN 
worth's three month's subscription to the Cedarville 
Universal Advertiser, notwithstanding it had been al- 
ways understood, that the editor was very much obliged 
to Mr Accidence, for accepting his paper. 

The next Cedarville Advertiser contained a second 
article upon Dilworth's school. It was the antipodes 
of the first one, and commencing with " In what we 



52 CORRECTED PROOFS. 

said last week, we did not mean to be understood," 
&c., went on to place Mr Accidence as much below 
par, as the first had placed him above. Miss Judith 
Primrose suddenly discovered that it was unconstitu- 
tional to admit male members to the privileges and im- 
munities of the Dorcas Society ; the vote to admit them 
was reconsidered, and Mr Accidence was expelled. 
The Reading Society was abandoned. The albums 
in which Dilworth practised joining-hand, were muti- 
lated by the abstraction of the leaves upon which he 
wrote — and thus were effaced the last traces of the 
honors paid in Cedarville to Mr Dilworth Accidence. ^ 



A PET IN A PET. 

Tap, tap, tap — a very pretty foot, cased in a very pretty 
shoe, strikes the carpet. The mate to it rests on an 
ottoman, buried in its thick nap, like a tiny jet sunk in 
chased gold. Her chin is supported by the taper fore- 
finger of her left hand — a beautiful animate paradox — 
for while the chin seems of no weight at all, the finger 
is bent back under it. The loose sleeve of a morning 
dress falling back to the elbow, half reveals the prettiest 
arm in the w^orld. The right hand hangs over the edge 
of a dressing-table as the arm lays along upon it, and 
in the mirror at her side her pretty profile is reflected. 
We wished to say Grecian profile — but our credit as an 
historian ! Her nose is a most decided pug, and seems 
placed upon her face only to play second to her lips, 



PET IN A PET 



53 



when, as at the moment we are speaking of, they pout 
displeasure. Her complexion is a brunette, her eye- 
brows black, and as beautifully arched as Hogarth 
could have conceived, when he described the line of 
beauty. Beneath them, a pair of black eyes are more 
than half concealed by the envious lids, and over the 
moiety visible, the long black lashes drop as a veil. 

Softly, softly. Those lids are trembling — and now 
a pearly drop is slowly coursing down over that bit of a 
nose. Another, and another ! Alas ! that with the dis- 
repute which has fallen upon the ancient polytheism, 
the gods in revenge have forgotten their vocation ! No 
little invisible Cupids save those tears to dip their 
arrows' points withal, but they are " wasted on the des- 
ert air " of a lady's chamber. Hark ! she speaks ! 

" Ruined ! " 

Indeed, poor girl ! Another item to be added to the 
account-current, which has long been accumulating 
against faithless man — -another tale of a broken heart, 
vouched and certificated — another draft on his affections 
dishonored ! No wonder she weeps. 

" I never will again trust a man" — 

" No more I would. Bell ! " said her sister, who had 
slipped in unperceived. 

Bell jumped up, and dashed away her tears right 
and left, with a grace which Mrs Ternan might have 
studied. *' Allow me to finish the word you have bitten 
off tua-maker and dress-maker." 

" Oh, is that all ? I thought you had had another 
flurry with Harry." 

" Harry — odious! it is quite enough to think of him, 
when, as is the case daily, he presents his beautiful face, 
all radiant with smiles and simpers — a ' shining morning 
5* 



54 CORRECTED PROOFS. 

face ' on all occasions, morning, noon and night — like 
an everlasting painting of a Spring scene, the same at 
all seasons, though ten months in the year out of season. 
Always uniform — always alike — I hate him. But to 
talk of business. My dress is spoiled." 

" And therefore fell those salt, salt tears ! Well I'm 
glad to see that you are a reasonable little piece of 
womanhood, for nothing less than such a misfortune 
should cause such an extravagant waste of woman's; 
artillery. But I've a delightful piece of gossip for you.'* 

'' Indeed ! " 

" Yes — and I'm so sorry." 

" Pleased and sorrowful in a breath ! Well sister of 
mine — why '? — how ? Read me the riddle." 

" I'm sorry you've discarded Harry." 

" Thank you, or rather let him thank you. But take 
care, Clara. ' Pity for man is sister to love.' " 

" Don't murder a quotation to warn me — it is unneces- 
sary, because too late. Harry has found a new divinity 
— that's the delightful bit of gossip, — and it won't vex 
you, now ' that bygones are bygones' — that's what I'm 
sorry for. It is a shame." 

"What?" said Bell, lifting her little form, till it 
appeared as majestic as Titania, spurning a pert grass- 
hopper. "What!" again, her swan-like neck moving 
with all the grace of ill suppressed ire. 

" Why, that Miss should spoil your dress." 

" Oh ! " and Arabella faced her glass, and schooled 
her pretty features to indifference — at least so she im- 
agined. Clara read, first, deep thought and uneasy, in 
her sister's countenance, then abstraction. 

" She is an odious creature." 

" I dare say — if to his taste." 



A P E T I N A P E T . 55 

" His taste ! What has he to do with a fashionable 
milliner 1 " And Clara rubbed her hands, in unaffected 
glee. " I say, that in proportion as a modiste becomes 
fashionable, she grows awkward." 

"True." 

" You need not sigh assent from the bottom of your 
heart, though. The injury is not irreparable." 

'' No ! I thank Heaven, too, I have friends who will 
see me atoned. John shall demand an explanation." 

"Ha! ha! Brother John will appear to good advan- 
tage scolding a milliner !" 

Arabella took her sister by the shoulder, led her to 
the door, half in jest and half in anger, and locked it 
after her. 

"I could tell you something, — but I won't!" the 
incorrigible tormentor screamed through the key-hole. 
****** 

Clara and Arabella were listening to the opera of the 
Maid of Judah. 

" A beautiful woman !" said Clara. 

" Do you think so ? " 

" Rebecca"— 

"Is that her name?" 

"Have you forgotten Scott's Ivanhoe, the Jew of 
York, and his fair daughter 1 I declare, Arabella, I'm 
ashamed of you." 

At this moment, another lady was handed down be» 
side them. Arabella saw she was pretty, and instituted 
a silent comparison between herself and the stranger. 
Do not think it was vanity, it was mere absence. The 
opera she did not care a fig for — Rebecca failed as en- 
tirely of attracting her attention, as of diverting Brian 
de Bois Guilbert from his purpose of detaining her. 



56 CORRECTED PROOFS. 

The " wood notes wild" of Robin Hood and his merry 
men all, might quite as well have been indeed 

All by the shady greenwood tree, 

as under the proscenium. Presently, she lost thought 
of all — even of the lady at her side. She was thinking 
of her spoiled dress no doubt — it was so provoking. 

''Mary!" 

The stranger turned, and so did Arabella — both 
knew the voice. Henry Walton assisted her father to 
take the fainting Arabella to the saloon, and called a 
coach. She saw nothing of him that night, after the 
glimpse she had of his features, as he put his head over 
her shoulder to speak to her rival. 

****** 

" I am happy to find you so well recovered from your 
indisposition, Arabella — I feared, last night, it was 
something serious." 

"Thank you, Mr Walton," said Bell, bridling. 

Silence five minutes. 

" A beautiful day — I think, Arabella, this Indian 
Summer more than half atones for the coquetry of our 
changeful climate." 

" Beautiful." 

Another silence. That coquetry was an unlucky 
word, and Bell was wrapped in self-accusation, perhaps ? 
Do not believe it. A lady never pleads guilty to that 
elegant fault till she is no longer a coquette. 

" How did you like the young lady who sat next to 
you last evening 1 " 

Now was not this the summit of assurance ? But 
Arabella was too proud to take offence at it. She liked 
her appearance very much. 



APETINAPET. 57 

Henry promised her an introduction — engaged that 
the two should be dear friends — he hoped so — for he 
trusted they would be thrown together a great deal ! 

Worse and worse ! Arabella was puzzled. In bound- 
ed her merciless sister, Clara. 

"Now do you know, Henry, what ails Bell? I am 
going to tell you" — Arabella turned pale — *' it is all 
about a spoiled dress." 

" Impossible !" said Henry, astonished. 

" Yes, but it is though. Yesterday morning I lefl 
her, to run into Washington Street, where I met you 
and Mary, and when I came back, don't you think" — 

Arabella was staggering to the bell — her finger just 
touched the pull — and Henry caught her in time to save 
her a fall. Clara, frightened, gave the bell a jerk that 
brought the pull about her ears, and then, without wait- 
ing an answer to the summons, darted out of the room. 
When she returned, at the head of all the domestic 
forces, Bell was quite recovered. Henry had just fin- 
ished saying something of which the last word was 
*' sister " — Bell's lips were parted to answer — her eye 
caught Clara's — fell again — the blood forsook her face — » 

" Now don't faint again, Bell, don't ! " 

And she did not. 

Into a clear carnation sudden dyed — 
Her cheeks put their first paleness to the blush. 



A ring's put on — a prayer or two is said, 
You're man and wife, and — nothing more. 

Henry Walton came from Trinity Church with a 
lady on either arm, his wife and his sister. He handed 
the mischief-loving Clara into the coach after them, 



58 CORRECTED PROOFS. 

and then stepped in himself. Thus was filled the first 
coach of a merry three, which drove out to Hinghara 
to rusticate for a day and a half — as if somebody had 
done something, of which some one felt ashamed, and 
wished to drive somewhere to conceal it. 



THE POSTSCRIPT. 

I WROTE her a billet-doux anxious, 

On a gilt sheet of Gilpin's hot-pressed ; 
The device on the seal was a Cupid, 

With a wreath of heart's-ease for a crest : 
I begged, that if not for her own sake, 

And if not for love's sake, or for mine. 
That for conscience sake, she would her dollars 

And herself, to rny keeping resign. 

I swore I was raving distracted. 

And declared I was dying — was dead — 
That the lamp of my life in the socket 

Would go out with my life, if not fed. 
And then, if your conscience should render 

A true verdict, ' manslaughter, ' I pray 
Could you, heartless maiden, ever hope for 

One unclouded, or one happy day ? 

No lady has ever resisted 

Such a fervent and heart-searching tone ; 
At all events ne'er when of lovers 

She can muster but one — single one ! 
The penny-post ne'er was intended 

To transport flames and darts and such things ; 



RETROSPECTION. 59 

So she answered with proper discretion, 
By a Cupid, with bishop-sleeve wings. 

Page first was a volume of scandal : 

Ditto, ditto wag page number two — 
Interspersed with scraps French and Italian — 

Bah I bas — Oh ! indeed 'twas bas bleu f 
Page third was in raptures — ecstatics, 

With the opera and sweet Mrs Wood — 
As, like thousands of others, she'd pass for 

A critique, amateur, — if she could ! 

My suit not replied to ! "you cruel ! " — 

I began in my anguish to roar, 
When a few lines by chance I detected 

On the corner of page number four. 
P. S. ** I'd forgotten your letter, 

Though perhaps I should speak thereanent ; 
I have spoken to father and mother, 

And they say that we have their consent. *' 



RETROSPECTION. 

The apparent shortness of time past has been com- 
mented upon by prose-writer and poet, in all languages, 
and in all styles in every language. But nobody ever 
happened to express himself better upon the subject 
than Franklin. Plain, brief, and poetical, — the poetry 
of method, like his life. ** In looking back, how short 
the time seems ! I suppose that all the passages of our 
lives that we have forgotten, being so many links taken 
out of the chain, give the more distant parts leave, as 
it were, to come apparently nearer together." 



69 CORRECTED PROOFS. 



THE OLD SOLDIER. 

He had been to the Pension Office. The generosity— 
if generosity consists in deferring a benefit until the 
recipient is past the enjoyment of it,— or the justice— if 
justice consists in withholding the veteran's due till he 
is ready to go down to the grave, (generosity or justice 
—call it what you will, we can call it neither,) had, at 
last, awarded him his pension. An infirm old man !— 
The burden of old age and hope deferred had made him 
sick at heart, and sick of life. The death film was even 
now measurably drawn over the eye, once sparkling ; 
the pace which was once firm and confident in the 
strength of youth, and the pride of patriotism, had 
become irregular and tottering ; and the manly form, 
once erect and commanding, was bowed down — age and 
suffering had done it. He was a stranger in the metro- 
polis ; infirmity and neglect had broken down his body, 
but his spirit could better sustain itself; and a bitter 
sense of the neglect he had suffered from those who 
should have remembered him, had kept him in solitude. 
He would not offer a living comparison between the men 
who achieved, and the men who have profited by the 
achievement, without exertion of their own. The con- 
scious victim of cruel neglect and ingratitude, he con- 
sidered the tardy justice of his country a mockery, and 
nought but his abject poverty, and a wish to die " square 
with the world, " had induced him to apply for it. " And 
now," said he, " I will pay my debts — and die." The 
change of objects in the city bewildered him. He 



THE OLD SOLDIER. 61 

gazed upon the spacious and elegant edifices which had 
in his absence superseded old and familiar objects, — 
but he gazed with hurried and uncertain glances, as if 
doubting his senses. The bustling forms of a genera- 
tion who have forgotten the Revolution, flitted past him 
without heeding him, — the pensioner was alone in the 
city ! Amazed that the lapse of time had wrought such 
wonders, he felt like a stranger in a strange land, and 
that, too, on the very soil he had defended. 

His venerable appearance attracted the notice of a 
passer-by, who, perceiving the old man was bewildered, 
tendered his services to conduct him home. "Home! 
I have no home. I was at home here in '76, but I am 
forgotten now ! " A transient gleam of anger flashed 
in the veteran's eye — but in a moment it passed away, 
and the vacancy of his countenance returned. ''Where 
am I? Oh ! I have been to take the gift of Congress — 
let me go pay my debts before I die." The gift ! — 
here again his eye was lighted — and his bearing spoke 
the proud and wounded spirit — broken, but not subdued. 
An honest feeling of indignation mastered him; striving, 
as if strong in the pride of youth, to avoid the unfeel- 
ing and impertinent curiosity of the crowd who sur- 
rounded him, he sank exhausted to the pavement. 

" Take him to the police-office, for a vagrant ! " said 
one of the crowd. 

"Take yourself off", for an unfeeling brute!" said 

the honest fellow who had first addressed the veteran. 

" But," — catching him by the collar as he essayed to 

walk away, — " stop first, and give me the old man's 

pocket-book ! I saw you take it — hand over, or I'll tear 

you limb from limb ! " " Throttle him," cried one of 

the crowd — "a scoundrel ! rob a pensioner ! " " Down 
6 



62 CORRECTED PROOFS. 

with him ! " " Strip him ! " '' Take him to the po» 
lice ! " and the old man's wallet fell from the culprit in 
the scuffle. 

The pensioner was recognised by some one in the 
crowd, and he passively suffered himself to be put into 
a coach. He was conveyed to a shelter, and having 
happily fallen into good hands^ attention for a couple 
of days partially restored his exhausted energies. An 
indistinct remembrance of the events we have narrated 
flitted occasionally across his mind, but he rem.embered 
the events of '70 better than those of yesterday, and 
the countenances of those who had been his companions 
in arms were more distinctly marked in his memory, 
than the new ones he had seen the day before. When 
about to be put on board the stage to be conveyed 
home, the old man's mind again wandered. '' That's 
right — carry me to Congress — give me my due, I have 
fought for it ! Congress said I should have it ! " The 
old man's wallet was put into his hand. " Oh, yes, I 
knew I should get it ; they could not so soon forget the 
old soldier; but so late — let me pay my debts and die ! 
I can live no longer ! But somebody stole it — they got 
it away from me ; they couldn't do it fifty years ago ! 
but I've got it now, hav'n't I ? No, they didn't keep it 
— they would steal the old man's money ! They could 
not keep it — the God of battles would blast them for it. . 
Ood have mercy on them — they didn't fight for it ! — 
Let me pay my debts and die ! My children are all 
dead — my wife died in — in — the — poor-house — and me 
— I don't want to live any longer — nobody knows me 
now — let me die ! " 

The stage stopped at . Hitherto during the ride 

the old man had been silent. Forgetful of the present, 



THE OLD SOLDIER. 631' 

inattentive to things about him, his mind was back 
among other scenes. A long, long reverie,— and one 
from which he was never to awaken ! His lips moved 
rapidly, tliough no sound was audible ; involuntary and 
spasmodic emotions evinced the activity of his mind. 
He was busily communing with the friends, and review- 
ing the events of his youth. Poor old man ! fifty years 
since seemed to him but as yesterday. One of the lone 
isolated survivors of another and a better race, he had 
no communion with those about him. Dwelling upon 
the hardships, the privations, the dangers, the escapes, 
the victories of another age, his frame, infirm and old, 
could not support the recollection, as once, in the day of 
his strength, he withstood the reality! 

^' Hark 1" murmured the old man. All eyes turned 
towards him. He raised himself on his staff and leaned 
forward. His eyes beamed with supernatural animation, 
and contrasted fearfully with his shrunken counte* 
nance ; his hat had fallen, and his silver locks moved 
on the light air — his lips compressed — his posture 
firm ! Oh God ! was it his death-struggle ? The roll 
of a distant drum fell on his ear — he grasped his staflT 
firmly as once he had held his firelock. A bugle 
sounded clear and full beside the coach — '' For Con- 
gress and the People, cha — ! " His voice ceased, he 
fell back to his seat, a husky rattling in his throat suc- 
ceeded 

The spirit of the Revolutionary Patriot had departed. 



64 CORRECTED PROOFS 



BACCHANALIAN SONG. 

Where shall the anxious mind 

A respite find from sorrow ? 

Oh, where forgetfulness seek. 

Of the woes in reserve for to-morrow ? 

Xethe ! Lethe ! 
Thou wert wont to be found in a river's roll; 
We find thee now in the flowing, flowing bowl. 

Lethe ! Lethe ! 

Lethe ! thy floods of yore. 

Denied to weary mortals. 
Were only drank by those 

Who had passed th' Elysian portals ; 

Lethe ! Lethe ! 
Thou wert wont to be found in a river's roll; 
We find thee now in a flowing, flowing bowl. 

Lethe ! Lethe ! 

Our modern Lethe is 

For mortals sad, who need it ; 
Though sorrow come to-day. 
To-night we will not heed it ! 

Lethe ! Lethe ! 
For Oblivion's wave shall over it roll; 
We '11 drown all grief in a flowing, flowing bowl. 

Lethe ! Lethe ! 

Here shall the anxious mind 

A respite find from sorrow ! 
Drink, fellows ! drink to-night ! 
We may not drink to-morrow. 

Lethe ! Lethe I 
Thou wert wont to be found in a river's roll ; 
We find thee now in a flowing, flowing bowl. 

Lethe ! Lethe t 



THE MARTYR TO SCIENCE. 05 



THE MARTYR TO SCIENCE. 

The toad, ugly and venomous, 
Wears yet a precious jewel in hig head. 

How the following fell into my hands is nobody's busi- 
n-oss. Let that be as it will, a combination of the organs 
of Love of Approbation and Benevolence induces me 
to offer it to the reader ; Love of Approbation makes 
me hope that some persons may give me the credit of 
the authorship, — the merit of revision I claim, — and 
Benevolence leads^ me to trust that my readers will all 
be vastly edified by the perusal of the pleasant tragedy 
hereinafter set forth. The hero of the sketch i« not 
living noiv. Query, was he ever T 

* * 4i^ * «' * 

I had been absent fiom Boston several years — long 
enough for the inhabitants of that good city to creat-e 
and ride to death hobbies innumerable, and leave sur- 
viving the usual large proportion, to the trash, of really 
praiseworthy and excellent institutions. Among those 
of late years, the establishment of the cemetery at 
Mount Auburn is not the least. I was proud of my 
native city, when, rn a distant land, I heard of it, — 
proving, as it does, what with us needs no proof, — add- 
ijig another to the numberless evidences extant, that 
Yankees are not all sordid. Among my first pilgrima- 
ges after my landing, was one to this spot. I did not 
stop at the entrance, with F. A. B., to complain of the 
gateway. If there be happiness beyond death, what 
matter how we reach it, so that the transit be quick,, or 
6* 



tjp CORRECTED PROOFS. 

not too painful, and the gentle whispers of a conscience 
void of offence lull the sinking body to its long, last 
sleep ? If the grave be peaceful and holy, and the spot 
betoken the respect of the living for the dead, what 
matters it whether the approach he beneath wood or 
marble ? 

It was the still noon of an Autumn day. The gentle 
waving of the zephyr among the foliage, just detached 
here and there a " sere and yellow leaf," which went 
floating, sinking, almost imperceptible in its motion, to 
the earth, — escaping like the half-breathed sigh from a 
death-bed, — and intimating, by the very peace of the 
scene — death's sweetest attribute — the death of the 
year. The sun rode the heavens in all the clear, dry 
brightness of October, — myself and one person else 
were the only beings visible in this garden of death, — 
and the solitude was undisturbed by the voice of living 
thing. The stranger was standing near a marble mon- 
ument — I approached it. Upon it was inscribed the 

single word — < 

SPURZHEIIVI. 

I do reverence the great dead — and such, this simply 
majestic inscription bespoke him who reposed beneath. 
I uncovered, and knelt to his memory. I beg pardon 
for my then utter ignorance upon a subject which it is 
now unpardonable not to know ; I had not even a guess 
at the character or opinions of the apostle of the new 
science. I crave indulgence for my idolatry, too, and 
submit to casuists whether my worship of the unknown, 
or the devotion of deep disciples, be the more criminal. 
But the scene and its features, its breathless stillness, 
its associations, awed and mastered me. I knelt. I 
confess that my devotion was, in a measure, fashiona- 



THE MARTYR TO SCIENCE. 67 

ble — an outward seeming only ; and, after the first 
feeling of awe, curiosity was paramount. But I dared 
put no questions to the solemn-looking gentleman in 
black, who stood near me- — I could not interrupt him 
with queries, which would at once proclaim my igno- 
rance and lack of veneration, — that solemn gentleman 
jn black ! Sidelong glances at him showed me that he 
was even then apparently impatient. His feet were in- 
voluntarily caught up alternately — his eyes were intently 
rivetted upon me — he stretched out his arms, and with- 
drew them — moved his lips, muttered to himself, — and 
altogether conducted so like one beside himself at my 
presence, that I began inwardly to reproach myself 
with having intruded upon the sanctity of private grief, 
in the place, of all places sacred to its indulgence. 
Presently he was, at one stride, beside me, and placed 
both hands upon my head. He is blessing me for my 
sympathy, thought I. He passed his hands hurriedly 
beneath my hair, and all about my cranium. It is the 
very nervous intensity of sorrow ! — I dared not speak, 
or look up. 

*^ Veneration small," he began to utter, in the tone 
of soliloquy — I would have given a world, almost, to 
have changed places with the tenant of the tomb be- 
fore us. " How can it be] Oh ! " passing both hands 
to my forehead, ''Benevolence and Imitation large;" 
true, thought I, that is the stuff mourners are too often 
made of — but how the deuce does he read me? "A 
hypocrite 1 " — the perspiration started — " No, not ex- 
actly, not Secretiveness enough : " — what new Boston 
notion is all this ? " A phenomenon ! " he cried aloud, 
*' a phenomenon ! Really, sir, you have a very re- 
markable head!" 



68 COnilECTED PROOFS. 

*' Sir ! " exclaimed I, rising astonished at what ap- 
peared to me incoherent trifling for any place, and par- 
ticularly irreverent in such an one. 

*' A very remarkable head t I wish you wouTd give 
it me, to report to the society \ipon," 

" Sir !" said I again, eyeing him in terrified suspi- 
cion, and starting back^ with both hands about ray 
neck. 

** Your head, sir, your head ; Spurzheim would have 
paid thousands for it" — I looked at the grave of the 
purchaser of heads with a shudder — a modern Herod ! 
** Do give it me, or," advancing, " I'll get it in spite of 
you." 

*' In the name of God," said I, in the low, husky 
voice of horror, *' have the resurrectionists in this 
country become Burkers ? In broad daylight, too, with 
so much deliberate cruelty, and satanic method and 
civility 2 " 

" A very good actor — very facetious — large Imita- 
tion — can't support it long, however — no Secretiveness. 
To be serious, an enthusiast like you must have had a 
phrenological estimate made. Let me see it." 

'"^ No ! " cried I, retreating, and catching up a stone. 

*' Let me take a cast." 

^'No!" 

•*^ Let me at least thoroughly examine." 

'^'No!" 

■" Well, this is really carrying the joke too far." 

" So I think," still retreating. 

** You are an oddity, and your head must be invalu- 
able." 

'' So I have always found it, and will keep it myself, 
with your permission." 



THE MARTYR TO SCIENCE. C9 

*' Oh, certainly, ha ! ha ! — you are very amusing, ha ! 
ha! — Mirthfuhiess large. But do answer one question 
— very fine head — do you approve of Combe's — " 

" Combs or brushes — how is it your business ? " said 
I, not a little piqued ; and I walked off at a round 
pace. (N. B. My barber always tells me I do not know 
how to take care of my hair.) I left the strange mortal 
laughing, and stole behind a clump of trees to take his 
dimensions and survey his dress, almost resolved to ad- 
vertise him through the prints, that his friends might 
consign him to the place provided for the insane, at 
Worcester. At any rate, I was determined to recollect 
his person, that I might give information, should the 
crier or the newspapers ask the humane to confer a 
favor on his anxious friends, by information of his proba- 
ble whereabouts. 

The morning's adventure did not impair my appetite. 
Brown soup — I like soup, — boiled goose with oyster- 
sauce, boiled lamb wath capers — I like boiled, — a bit 
of roast fowl, roast pork — I like roast, — apple pie — I 
like pastry, — disappeared before me with more than 
their wonted celerity. 

" Alimentiveness large ! " 

I dropped my knife and fork ; the last bit of the out- 
side crust almost choked me. Opposite, but unobserved 
before, sat my friend of Mount Auburn. My nether 
jaw fell, and I stared full in his face. 

" Language large, indicated by prominence of the 
eyes." 

I jumped from the table. " Landlord ! " said I, tak- 
ing him by the arm, and leading him to the dining- 
room door, " Landlord ! " said I, in a whisper, " who 
is that gentleman alone at the table 1 " 



70 COKRECXED PROOFS. 

" Oh, that's Mr , the Phrenologist." 

*' Oh!" said I, as if perfectly understanding — though 
it was unexplained Greek to me. 

*' Gentlemen," said a man, entering the sitting-room 
with a paper in his hand, *' I am a member of the- 
Polish Relief Committee. I have here a subscription 
paper — I am unacquainted with you all, but I shall ask 
the gentleman to head it, who I think will subscribe 
the largest sum." 

All laughed at the conceit — it was fashionable to be- 
friend the Poles — so nobody took offence. He walked 
about the room to each gentleman in turn, and pitched 
upon me. I wrote my name, thrust my hand in my 
pocket for my wallet, half cajoled by flattery, as many 
other fools have been, to give away what I could ill 
afford. 

** But first," said I, *' you must tell me why yoa 
selected me? " 

" Your Benevolence is large." 

*' You know me, then," blushing — extremely flattered 
—and not hesitating to appropriate the compliment. 

'* Oh, no sir, but your head, sir, it is fully developed 
— very," patting my forehead with the familiarity of an 
uncle. 

" Take the developement for the deed, then — not a 
mill do you get ! " And I bounced out of the room, 
called for my bill, and ordered my baggage after me to 

the House. The house I left used to be one of 

the best in the city — but alas ! a worse than the worst 
plagues of Egypt had come up into the eating-rooms 
and the parlor. I did not try the sleeping chambers. 

At the House, I supped magnificently, smoked 

like a Spanish grandee, slept like a sultan of Persia, 



THE MARTYR TO SCIENCE. 71 

•and rose the next morning with no more Phrenology 
in my head, than if the head had nothing to do with 
that science. I did indeed hear a thin sallow-looking 
dyspeptic say at the breakfast table, that an egg he was 
trying to crack had Firmness full, and another said 
Adhesiveness was astonishingly developed in the steak 
— but I could swallow a few of the technicals with my 
breakfast, as long as there was no attempt at practical 
application on myself 

When Sambo brought my boots, he dropped them on 
my feet, almost to the extinction of my toes, started 
back, threw up his paws, and ejaculated between a 
whistle and a shout — 

" Wor-r-r-r-a-a-a ! " 

'' What's the matter. Sambo ? " 

■*' Why, it's nex to noffin, massa." 

" What's next to nothing ? " 

" I lose de skyentific bet I made wid Cuffee.'V 

*' What do you mean 1 " 

*' Don't see how you 'buse you boots, massa ! " 

" Why, you snowball, I walked about in them." 

'' No, no, massa; dat's unpossible ! " 

"You infernal Ethiopian, do you tell me I liet 
Hav'n't I a pair of legs, and feet to match 1 " 

" Yes, massa, but you got no 'cality." 

" What ! " 

" You got no devil-opement of 'cality, none at all ! " 

There v/as no question of the power of my foot to 
overcome Sambo's vis inertia, whatever might have 
been his disposition to travel. 1 paid my bill and left 
the House — but not without getting a phreno- 
logical dab from the clerk, who declared I lacked Ac- 
quisitiveness, because I neglected to take my change 



73 CORRECTED PROOFS. 

from the counter. I bit through my under lip to stifle 
an oath, dashed the change at his head, seized my 
portmanteau and cloak, knocked down three porters, 
who offered service, and walked half a mile before 
dinner to the house of an aunt. She was glad to see 
me. Here, at least, said I, mentally, there is no dan- 
ger from Phrenology, for the old lady has read nothing 
this thirty years, but the Bible and Fox's Book of 
Martyrs. 

" Now dear John, I'm so glad you've come ; you 
shall go to the lecture with me to-night." 

" Certainly, aunt." I thought it might be the pre- 
paratory for the Sabbath — or a lecture against Cath- 
olicism — against slavery — any thing, even abolition, 
rather than Phrenology. 

" I attended two courses last Winter," she continued, 
*' but I can't this. I must, however, go one night with 
you, just to see Mr Fowle, and ask him one question." 

I began to be frightened. 

" What is it, aunt ? perhaps I can tell you." 

" Well, perhaps you can ; I never thought. I want 
to know if the beast spoken of. Revelations xiii. 1, you 
know it means the enemy, John," — I breathed again, 
as I found she was upon scripture, — " I want to know 
if that ain't a figurative type to be explained, the seven 
heads by the science 1 " 

" What science, aunt ? " said I, startled again. 

'' Why, Phrenology, John." 

'' Oh Lord ! " 

" I thought you'd be astonished ; but hear me, and 
then say if 'tain't reasonable." 

I shut my eyes, closed my teeth hard together, and 
sat in mute despair. 



THE MARTYR TO SCIENCE. 73 

" First, there's Combativeness, Revelations xi. 7, the 
beast shall make war against the witnesses ; the second 
is Destructiveness, he goeth about" like a roaring lion, 
seeking whom he may destroy ; the third is Imitation, 
he can appear like an angel of light ; the fourth — but 
you are not well, John ? " 

" No, I must go into the air." 

'' Leave your cloak and trunk ? " 

" No ! " 

* * * * * * 

" Take a hack for the Providence Rail-Road ? " 

" Yes." 

In the cars I was only doomed to hear of a man, 
whose forehead, by comparing two charts, grew out 
like a horned unicorn's. On board of the boat the 
discourse was upon Fulton's Constructiveness. In 
New York I gained flesh on two paragraphs, one in 
the Star and the other in the Courier, which spoke of 
Phrenology as an imposture, as it deserves. But alas ! 
there is no peace for a " remarkable head ! " I caught 
a, fellow one morning eyeing me suspiciously, and seeing 
an advertisement for a course of phrenological lectures in 
the day's papers, I took boat the same night for Albany* 
Thence I have been driven to Troy, Rochester, Utica 
and Buffalo, New York, to Columbus and Cincinnati, 
Ohio, down the river, and to Little Rock, Arkansas. 
There I hoped for quiet, — but no ! a restless unit of 
the universal Yankee nation, a Mr A. Pike, looked sus^ 
piciously and inquisitively at me, and I was off again. 
Now I am at — but no matter I Wheresoever a " re- 
markable head " is, there will the Phrenologists be 
gathered together. I will buy the postmaster's secrecy 
with twice his annual salary and perquisites, and nobody 



74 CORRECTED PROOFS. 

shall hunt me out, to go birds' nesting among my hair, 
for the eggs of this new science ] — science I 'tis profa^ 
nation thus to misapply the word ! 

P. S. C'en est fait — my jig is up! While under 
the barber's hands this morning, a boy posted up in the 
shop the programme of a course of Phrenological 
Lectures ! Verily the science should be applied to 
the driving of locomotives on rail-roads, for it out- 
travels steam. I have seen the lecturer — the same 
scoundrel who frightened me at Mount Auburn — he is 
even now coming up the yard with two attendants bear- 
ing a bucket and a parcel — there is no back door and 
no escape ! 

****** 

J regret to say that the following extract from the 
World's-end-ville Herald of Freedom, received per last 
mail, can refer to nobody but J. Shun Manipulation, 
Esquire. 

" The body of an Eastern man, who has been but a 
few days in this village, was found, yesterday morning, 
suspended by a brass machine, something resembling a 
pair of callipers, hooked into a timber in an unfinished 
room in the Columbian Hotel. Death must have been 
very painful, and caused by strangulation undoubtedly. 
About the hair of the deceased were bits of lime. 
Verdict, suicide. 

*' Since the above was put in type, we learn that the 
brass machine belongs to Dr Bump, the Phrenologist, 
and is used for looking into heads. We learn, farther, 
that the lime on the hair is plaster of Paris, and was 
stolen by the deceased from the doctor, while that gen,* 
tleman was taking a cast of his head. We seize with 
pleasure the present opportunity to recommend to the 



AUTOBIOGRAPHIES. 75 

citizens of World' s-end-ville to attend the lectures of 
Dr Bump, who will trace a similarity between the head 
of this stranger and that of Murel the great land-pirate 
—elucidated by anecdotes of the peculiarities of each." 



AUTOBIOGRAPHIES 

Should generally be deemed rather apologies than 
etrictly impartial narratives. Few persons are indiffer- 
ent to posthumous fame, — even the most humble cherish 
a hope to be remembered beyond the term of their lives. 
Among the indifferent, those who take care to be their 
own historians are certainly not to be classed. They 
will, therefore, place their own conduct in the best pos- 
sible light, and while the good sense of those who de- 
serve to be remembered will prevent their wilfully mis- 
representing facts, still it is " human natur," as Old 
Stapleton says, to give one's own acts a favorable color. 
A man will do this without being himself aware of it — 
and with the most honest intentions in the world. The 
autobiographer sees in his journal a second self, which, 
he confidently hopes, is to be the companion of succeed- 
ing generations ; and whatever other attributes of the 
original this representative may lack, it is never defi- 
cient in — self. 



76 CORRECTED PROOFS. 



THE VAUDOIS HARVEST HYMN. 

The following is a liberal translation — almost a paraphrase. In 
the original French, the words are adapted to an air so much re- 
sembling the English National Anthem "God save the King," 
that some of the curious in such matters have supposed it the 
model upon which the English Anthem was formed. 

Father of Mercies! God of Peace! 
Being whose bounties never cease! 
While to the Heavens, in grateful tones. 
Ascend our mingled orisons. 
Listen to these, the notes of praise, 
Which we, a happy people, raise! 

Our hamlets, sheltered by Thy care, 
Abodes of peace and plenty are; 
Our tillage by Thy blessing yields 
An hundred fold — the ripened fields 
Of flowing grain — the burthened vine — - 
Are tokens of Thy Love Divine. 

The cradled head of infancy 
Oweth its tranquil rest to Thee — 
Youth's doubting step, and firmer tread 
In years mature, by Thee are led — 
Secure may trembling age, Oh Lord! 
Lean on its staff. Thy Holy Word. 

Teach us these blessings to improve. 
Teach us to serve thee, teach to love — 
Exalt our hearts, that we may see 
The Giver of all Good, in Thee; 
And be Thy Word our daily food. 
Thy service, God, our greatest goo(jL 



SIR HUGH EVANS. 77 

Whether in youth, like early fruit, 
Or in the sere and solemn suit 
Of our autumnal age, like wheat 
Ripened and for the reaper fit. 
Thou cut us off. Oh God, may we 
Gathered into Thy garner be! 



SIR HUGH EVANS, 

Who figures in the Merry Wives of Windsor, as a Welsh 
parson, was curate of the priory of Brecon, Wales, 
in the time of Queen Elizabeth. Shakspeare was a 
visiter in the family of the patron of the parson, and 
there is no question that the whimsicalities of old 
Sir Hugh are drawn from the original Welsh curate. 
Campbell, in his life of Mrs Siddons, quotes this origin 
of the character from a " Cambrian friend," and farther 
supposes the fairy machinery of the Midsummer Night's 
Dream to be drawn from this part of Wales. The 
traditionary history of Puck and his companions is still 
preserved there. Favorites, as Shakspeare's plays are 
now, what must they have been when the knov/ing ones 
could read the traces of the originals, in the stage 
copies ! Allusions, the points of which are now lost, 
could then be understood and enjoyed, and the poet, 
who was " veiie good company, and of a verie ready, 
and pleasant, and smooth wit," no doubt improved the 
peculiarities of all who were drawn about him, by his 
conversational talents. 



75 CORRECTED PROOFS 



EASY JOE BRUCE. 

'* The devil ! " exclaimed Mr Joseph Bruce, or per- 
haps we should rather say Joe Bruce, for, as he was a 
noble, easy fellow, nobody thought of allowing him 
more than half of his name, or of any thing else which 
belonged to him, — *' The devil ! I see by the paper that 
Hawk & Harpy have assigned. I meant to have se- 
cured my debt yesterday ! " He left his coffee half 
drank, stumbled over the threshold, and went almost 
at a run to the compting-room of Hawk & Harpy. 
One half that speed on the day before would have saved 
his debt, — as it was, he was just in season to put oil his 
name at the bottom of a dozen and a half preferred 
ones, to receive ten per cent. He went back to his 
unfinished breakfast with what appetite he might. 

"Why did you neglect this so long, Mr Bruce? " 
said his helpmeet and comforter. 

*' I meant to have attended to it yesterday, my dear." 

" You meant ! That is always your way, Mr Bruce. 
You carelessly neglect your business to the last mo- 
ment, and then put yourself in a haste and a heat for 
nothing, my dear." 

'' Really, Mrs Bruce—" 

But Mrs Bruce did not allow him a chance to defend 
himself On she went, in the most approved conjugal 
manner, to berate him for his carelessness and inatten- 
tion. 

"Really, Mrs Bruce— " 

And it was really Mrs Bruce, for few of the feminine, 



EASY JOE BRUCE. 79 

and none of the masculine gender, could have kept 
pace with her. Certainly Easy Joe could not. The 
clatter of a cotton-mill would not have been a circum- 
stance to the din she raised — nay, we doubt whether 
a philippic against one of those said mills, from the lungs 
of Benton To?ians, could have been heard above her 
voice. Easy Joe pulled a cigar-case out of his pocket 
— clapped his feet on the fender — and it almost seemed 
that the smoke rendered his ears impervious to the 
bleatings of that gentle lamb, his spouse, so placid was 
his countenance, as the vapor escaped in graceful vol- 
umes from his mouth. People overshoot the mark 
sometimes — Mrs Bruce did. Had she spared her ora- 
tion, the morning's loss would have induced her hus- 
band to have been punctual to his business, for one day 
at least. As it was, he took the same sort of pride in 
neglecting it under her lecture, that the Grande Nation 
will probably take, in refusing to pay the claims of our 
citizens. 

" Breeze away, Mrs Bruce." 

*' Breeze away, sir ! Breeze away ! I wish I could 
impart one tittle of my energy to you, Mr Bruce — I — 
I—" 

Bruce sprang to his feet, and crash! came an elegant 
mantel clock down upon the hearth. 

"There, Mr Bruce! That clock has stood there 
three months without fastening — a single screw would 
have saved it — but — " 

" Well, I meant to—" 

" You meant! Mr Bruce — You meant won't pay the 
damage, nor Hawk & Harpy's note ! You meant, 
indeed ! " 

Bruce seized his hat and cloak. In a few minutes he 



80 CORRECTED PROOFS. 

was on 'Change. Nobody could read in his face any 
traces of the late matrimonial breeze, and nobody 
would have suspected from his countenance that Hawk 
&, Harpy failed in his debt. Easy Joe Bruce. 

" Well, Mr Bruce, they've routed him." 

" Who ? " 

'' Our friend Check. Pingree was chosen president 

of the Bank, this morning. One vote would have 

stopped him." 

" How deucedly unlucky. / meant to have been 
present to \ote far Check myself." 

" Never mind, Bruce," said another. *' You are a 
lucky man. The news of the great fire in Speeder- 
ville has just reached town by express, and I congratu- 
late you that you was fully insured." 

" The devil ! My policy expired last week, and I 
meant to have got it renewed this morning." 

Joe posted home in no very happy humor. When an 
easy man is fairly up, he is the most uneasy and un- 
reasonable man in creation. 

'* Mrs Bruce, by staying at home to hear you scold, 
I have lost thousands. I meant to have got insured 
this morning — I did not — Speederville is burned down, 
and I am a beggar." 

'' Why did you not do it yesterday, Mr Bruce ? " 

" I was thinking of Hawk & Harpy." 

" Thinking ! Why did you not secure yourself? " 

^^ I meant to, but — " 

" But — me no buts." 

" You are in excellent spirits, Mrs Bruce." 

*' Never in better." 

*' Vastly fine, madam. We are beggars." 



EASY JOE BRUCE. 81 

Mrs Bruce sat down, clapped her feet on the fender, 
after her husband's manner in the mornmg. 
" We are beggars, madam," Bruce repeated. 
" Very good — I will take my guitar, and you shall 
shoulder the three children. We'll play under Mr 
Hawk's window first, then under Mr Harpy's, and then 
beg our way to Speederville, to play to the ashes of 
what was once your factory, — which i/ou meant to have 
insured. I should like begging of all things." 
" You abominable woman, I shall go mad." 
" Don't, I beseech you, Mr Bruce. They put mad 
becfojars in Bedlam." 

Bruce sprung for the door. His wife intercepted 
him. " Here, Joseph, is a paper I meant to have 
shewed you this morning." 

'' A policy ! And dated yesterday ! " 
" Yes. You meant to get it renewed to-day — / 
meant it should be done yesterday — so I told your 
clerk, from you, to do it. Am I not an abominable 
woman ? " 

*' When I said so, I was in a pet. / meant — " 
" No more of that, Joseph. Now tell me who is first 
on Hawk &- Harpy's assignment." 
*' Your brother." . 
" His claim covers you both." 
" You are an angel ! " 

Easy Joe became an altered man, and his vt^ife was 
released from her watch over his out-door business. 
She died some years before him — but we are half in- 
clined to suspect, that after her death Joe partially re- 
lapsed into his Aid habits — so true it is, that habit is a 
second nature. Both were buried in the grave-yard at 
Speederville, and our suspicions are founded on some- 



82 CORRECTED PROOFS. 

thing like the following conversation, which took place 
between the grave-digger and his assistant : — 

" Where are we to dig Mr Brace's grave ? " 

" I don't know exactly. His will says, next his 
wife." 

"Where was she laid ? " 

" That I don't know. Easy Joe always said he 
meant to place an obelisk over her, but it was never 
done." 



THE OMNIBUS 



A DEAL may be learned in the world, by keeping the 
eyes open ; they are the main avenues to the brain, 
and should be unlimitedly indulged — permitted to look 
at all descriptions of persons, and into all sorts of 
places. In Allan Cunningham's Lives of Sculptors 
and Painters, an artist — no matter what artist, it is 
sufficient that he was debased with the too common 
arlloy of genius — an artist is described as fond of low 
society. He v/as one evening surprised carousing, 
" hail fellow well met," with a group of drunken fish- 
ermen. In extenuation, he held up an exquisite pencil 
sketch of the scene, and pleaded the pursuit of his 
avocation as an excuse for his debauchery. Somebody, 
with a literary appetite resembling the natural appetite 
of a man who would eat a kersey over-coat, for the 
nourishment contained in the w^axon the tailor's thread, 
says there is no book, however vile or trashy, from 



THEOMNlBtS. 98 

which some good may not be gleaned. The like re- 
mark may be applied to the observation of men and 
things. Artists, novelists, editors, and magazine wri- 
ters, must, like Leigh Hunt's pigs, '' run up all manner 
of streets," in pursuit of subject matter for pencil and 
pen. But by no means think that it follows, that to 
sketch the Coliseum, it is necessary to do all that Ro- 
mans do ; or that to understand the whale and smaller 
miscellanies of the deep, it is necessary to carouse with 
fishermen. I wash my hands o^ that conclusion, Allan 
Cunningham's artist to the contrary notwithstanding. 
Still, to be noticed or read, artists and scribblers must 
be of, and among men. If they live altogether for the 
past, they will live as if they were not, among the mat- 
ter-of-fact people of this " working-day world." Nine 
readers in ten prefer an account of what has passed 
under their noses, to an elaborate history of the court 
intrigues of the Celestial Empire, and would rather 
read the history of yesterday, than a statement of the 
grounds of quarrel among the operatives of Babel, who 
"turned out" for a new grammar. Hence the rage 
for newspapers. Now for the omnibus. 

" Omnibuster " is the London name, the legitimate 
title of the vehicle in the classic dialect of Alsatia. 
The same '^ coves" call the attendant boy a "Cad." 
Why thus called, linguists must determine ; but certain 
I am, that to commence the word with a 6 or an s would 
be better orthography, and make a fitter title ; for, 
among the numerous freshmen and graduates of the 
stable, a " worse " or a " sadder " set of saucy little in- 
carnate outrages never dodged horses' heels. An 
omnibus is a miniature world, — ^a Noah's ark, in whicb 
representatives of every class of society are wont to 



84 ' CORRECTED PROOFS. 

congregate — in a word, a place where it is pleasant, 
profitable, and necessary to keep the eyes open. When 
an observing man takes a seat in it, there 

Is speculation in the eyes. 
Which he doth glare withal. 

His fellow passengers are his property, and play, in his 
imagination, the parts he assigns to them. Maelzel 
manages figures of wood and metal, with leathern ar- 
ticulation to their limbs, and leathern lungs; your 
omnibus Prometheus has a new set of puppets at every 
ride — bona fide breathing ones. 

I often ride in an omnibus — as much for ninepence 
worth of acting v/ithout previous rehearsal, as for econo- 
my in time. 

All the coach is a stage, 
And all the passengers are merely players. 
They have their exits and their entrances — 

And, to preserve the likeness, little Cad jingles his bell 
-^very like the signal to the scene-shifters. I found 
myself, upon an evening sometime since, among no 
common-place set of materiel for the fancy. At my 
left was a comfortable old gentleman, comfortably set- 
tled in the world — at least I set him down as such. 
Opposite him was an uncomfortable little young lady, 
uncomfortably unsettled — unmarried, possibly, and 
waiting for a husband. She might have been the old 
gentleman's daughter — perhaps his ward only ; but, at 
any rate, he had the nominal charge of her. Easy 
old gentlemen seldom have more than the name of 
guardians over uneasy young ladies ; if they are fathers, 
they have not even that. Opposite me, in the other 
corner, was a young lady with two bundles, one of 
which was an infant. We four had the end of the 



THE OMNIBUS . 85 

omnibus next the horses. Of the rest of the passen- 
gers I saw nothing, except when a jolt of the carriage 
threw their noses forward, out of the shadow. They 
might have been quite as remarkable personages as we 
were, but, like thousands in the great world, went with- 
out notice, not because they were inherently unworthy 
of it, but because they were not in the light ! 

The Cad touched the bell. " Lady what stops at 
? " Miss — beg your pardon — Mrs made demon- 
strations of an intention to disembark. " Shall I take 
your bundle?" She did not so much as answer me. 
My comfortable friend offered service with as bad suc- 
cess, while his uncomfortable little ward thrust both 
feet across the coach. This obliging manceuvre con- 
vinced me that, though the two ladies had evinced an 
evident desire to become " better strangers," they were, 
nevertheless, acquainted. No lady of true good breed- 
ing insults one with whom she is unacquainted ; such 
liberties can only be taken with those who are or have 
been intimates. They were once rivals — I was positive 
of it. " Thank ye for nothing," the lady with the 
bundles did not say ; but her looks spake it, as she run 
the gauntlet to the door, with a parcel under each arm 
— the breathing bundle on the side where sat her un- 
comfortable little quondam friend. 

" Go ahead ! " shouted Cad. The coach went ahead, 
and so did the lady — a head and whole length into the 
mud ! There was a '' bubbling cry " — not like that of 

Some strong swimmer in his agony, 

but like a weak infant in a state of — smothering to 
death. 

8 



8^ CORRECTED PROOFS. 

*' Stop ! " cried out the comfortable old gentleman^ 
as he heard the splash. 

" Stop 1 " echoed your humble servant. 

" Pugh ! " said the uncomfortable little lady, as she 
turned up her nose expressively ; "let her husband itick 
her up." 

She might have spared her breath. Omnibusses and 
seventy-fours are not stopped for trifles ; and the lady 
was left to pick up herself and bundles as she might. 

" No wonder she fell," said the old man. 

" No," said the young woman. 

And " No," said I. " These infernal omnibus drivers 
and boys — " 

" The omnibus is well enough," said the old man. 

" Yes," said the young woman. 

I was puzzled. 

" You see," said the old gentleman, "that young 
lady — " 

" Not so very young, uncle." 

"No — no more she is; but she's younger than she 
looks. Let's see — she was born in the Fall of 18 — , 
the Spring of the same year — " 

" Oh ! " 

" What's the matter ? " 

" Such a dreadful jolt ! I declare, an omnibus is a 
nuisance." 

" Exactly," said I ; " still it is well enough." 

The comfortable old man laughed, and the uncom- 
fortable young Vv^oman looked daggers at me. The old 
gentleman continued — > 

" She always would carry her own bundles. I've 
known her since she was that high. She'd have her 
own way, 'spite of father and mother, and she would 



THEOMNIBUS. 87 

marry whom she pleased. So she was always getting- 
into trouble — " 

" Yes," said the young lady. 

" And she always manages to get out again." 

" Uraph ! " and a toss of the head and curl of the 
lip. There was effect ! — light and shade — for the upper 
iip cast a shadow in the lamplight, like a pair of black 
moustaches. 

*' She married a likely young fellow enough — poor — 
but she did not care for that, you know. Others would 
have been glad to have supplanted her." Here he 
iooked quizzingly at the uncomfortable little lady, and 
I looked where he did ; but she was trying to make 
something out of the palpable pitch darkness, through 
the coach door. 

" She would carry her own bundles, and now she 
must, whether she will or no. Family of children — 
husband poor and proud — young ladies that — " 

Ting-ting-ting — " The gentleman what stops at ." 

I left the coach, and lost the moral. But I have become 
acquainted with the heroine of the omnibus and her 
history since ; and, whatever temporary difficulties 
*' carrying her own bundle " may have led her into, I 
am convinced that she has, in the end, lost nothing by 
her independence and decision. 



CORRECTED PROOFS 



THE INDEPENDENT BEGGAR 

PAINTED BY S. WALDO. 

A plague upon such impudence ; 

Why, how the fellow stares! 
As if we were his tenants, all 

A twelvemonth in arrears. 
/ owe you nothing — prithee why 

That saucy look at me ? 
Nor is my friend Bob in your debt — 

You can't a tailor be! 

Blockhead ! with aspect unabashed. 

You eye the ladies too! 
Dost think they'll brook such impudence 

From such a thing as you ? 
They like assurance, it is said, 

(And nothing can be truer,) 
But hang it, yours is quite too bad — 

"Assurance doubly sure ! " 

Why there is — dash — and — dash — and — dash — 

(See Fanny Kemble's book,) 
Would pledge you all their ready cash, 

If you'd but teach that look! 
That is — they'll show you where the hat, 

The coat, the vest, the breek. 
The boot, the spur, the saddle-horse, 

May all be had — on tick. 

Pon't want 'em, hey ? Egad, you're right, — 

Diogenes himself 
Had lost his independence, if 

He'd found the tailor's shelf. 



DOUBLESENSE. 8^ 

Your goods and chattels none may steal, 

Nor officer attach ; — 
The grievous rents in your attire 

Will longer last than patch. 

Adieu, adieu, my hearty one ; 

Adieu my bully rough ; — 
I will not bid a *' fare-you-well," 

For yon fare well enough! 
That bone denuded of its meat, 

That porridge dish quite dry — 
Are tokens plain, that you have dined 

Better, by far, than I. 



DOUBLE SENSE. 

" MixNE eyes smell onions, I shall weep anon," was 
put by the Bard of Avon into the mouth of one of his 
characters. Should luckless poet or poetaster of our 
day give utterance to such a line, the whole pack of 
critics, little dogs and all, would be after him in a 
hurry ; that is to say, if he were worth barking at. 
Byron " sometimes thought that eyes have ears ; " — 
'that is better. Among all the properties attributed to 
the " eyelets of the soul," hearing is not the least poet- 
ical. But smelling, faugh ! the idea is " odorous.^' 

8* 



90 CORRECTED PROOFS 



AN EXaUISITE EPISTLE 

TO MR DURANT, THE AERONAUT 

Dear sir, I was extatical- 

Ly pleased and amazed. 
When on your car serial, 

Agape I stood and gazed. 
Do tell us your sensations, when 

Above our heads you flew ; — 
Was not your toilet disarranged 

By every breath that blew ? 

Oh, it must be excessively 

August to sail alone ; — 
Do you use Eau de Florida, 

Or Farina's Cologne ? 
To leave the world so far below. 

Above the clouds to soar ! 
Does claret color look as well 

Above the clouds, as lower? 

The prospect, too, from such a height. 

Without doubt glorious is ; — • 
Have you a pocket op'ra glass. 

Or do you wear a quiz ? 
Ma conscience ! what a splendid view 

You had of all the ton I 
Saquezs's annual reports 

Can't furnish such an one. 

How well above the city I 

Should like to sail alone ! 
I then might safely, loudly swear 

That I was du haul ton ! 



AN EXQUISITE EPISTLE. 9t 

Where in the city do you bay 

Your fits, and drapery? 
Do you wear one of Kimball's stocks. 

Or neckcloth negligee ? 

How happy, sir, you must have felt, 

While on the wing so high ! 
To know you was the staring point 

Of every body's eye ! 
A thousand ladies that I know. 

Your dangers loud deplored ; — 
I don't believe that otie would cry 

If / fell overboard ! 

'Pon honor, any sacrifice 

I could in conscience make, 
I would, if only like yourself, 

I thought that I could take. 
Your style of dress I want to know, 

To hear from you I pant ; 
I wish at least, if nothing more, 

To dress a la Durant ! 



92 CORRECTED PROOFS. 



TAR BRUSH SKETCHES 



Y BENJAMIN FIFERAIl,. 



AT SEA. 

"No, I swear — " 

" Then I'll not believe you — " 

" You won't believe my word, and if you will not 
my oath — " 

" Benjamin, the name of our Maker should not be 
lightly appealed to. Such irreverent allusions are not 
only profane, but indecorous and unbecoming." 

As she talked, I was aghast at the alteration working 
in Ellen's face. The dimples on her cheeks became 
wrinkles — her beautifully rounded chin grew sharp, and 
luxuriated in a beard of a week's growth — her black 
ringlets disappeared, and in their stead, silver bristles 
frowned the ten commandments at me. Her two lips 
could no longer be punned into tulips, for their fragrance 
betokened much nearer affinity to the Virginia weed, 
and her voice rumbled like the wind in a passion. The 
whole figure favored that of a reverend admonitor of 
my youth. Before I had time to be astonished at this 
metamorphosis, there was another — my mother threw 
her hands about my neck, and such a hug as she gave 
me ! I felt it a week — the balls of her thumbs made a 
bullet-mould, each side of my thorax. 

" Murdther an ouns! will ye turn out at all, Ben? " 



TAR BRUSH SKETCHES. 93 

" Oh, curse your brogue ! you've frightened away 
my mother." 

"Yer modther ! is it awake you are, whin yer siven 
sinses are playin Isaac an Josh wid you this way t 
Turn out Ben ! an see if yer modther will go out to the 
wedther earrin wid you. All hands ! " 

Heigho ! so it was, sure enough — as I undertook to 
creep out of my berth, the old brig Neptune gave a 
jerk, with as much hearty good will, as if the water- 
god who stood her sponsor, had thrust the whole three 
prongs of his toasting-fork into her, by way of a hint to 
be lively. I picked myself up from the deck, thoroughly 
convinced of two or three facts — the most important 
of which was, that the forecastle of the Neptune was as 
little like a lady's bower, or my mother's sitting-room, as 
possible. When I got up the hatch, I found Boreas at 
it in earnest, plajHng one of his most chromatic volunta- 
ries on the wind-harp. Don't, after this, say I'm no 
poet, reader. 

A busy two hours' work we had of it, and at the end 
of that time we were snug enough — laying to, under a 
balance-reefed trisail. We stowed ourselves away under 
the weather quarter-rail, and Dennis beguiled the re- 
maining tv.'o hours of the watch, with the following yarn. 



*' You never v/as up the Sthraits, Ben Fiferail?:" 

" Never, Dennis." 

" Won't I spin ye a twister thin, about the King o' 
the Turks?" 

" King of the Turks ! I thought it was the Sultan." 

'' The Sultin ? Well, it's all one in Greek, Ben Fife- 
rail. Where's the differ, I'd like to know, if a felly has 
the dosh, an the sojers, an his say in every thing, wed- 



94 CORRECTED PROOFS. 

ther you call him King, or Presidint, or Sultin, or Skip- 
per 1 Well, the King o' the Turks, he had four lawful 
wedded wives, an a raft more, that he couldn't spake 
so well iv. A mighty fine hullabaloo they'd kick up 
about his ears, to be sure ; it was murdther an ouns, 
wake in an wake out, an divil an hour's pace Sundays. 
If he'd a noggin o' the raal brought in till him, sorrer a 
drap he'd git, bekase why ? It's perlite he was, an whin 
he'd be givin the women the dthrink first, an the can 
kem back till him, it 'ud be dthry as a judge's eye whin 
a murdtherin tief blubbers for mercy." 

*' You know something about that? " 

" Hould yer tongue. It wasn't a child he had in his 
cabin at all, this King o' the Turks, barrin one. He 
was well-lookin enough, the b'y, but v/hin his fadther 
tould him he must git him a wife, sis he, ' Dad, I'll not 
do that thing. It's wives enough that there is intil the 
house, widout my fetchin anodther to quarrel over the 
drap liquor.' Wid that, the ould man was up direc'ly, 
an the b'y he was up too, an a braze there v/as blowed 
up betwane 'em, you may swear. Sis the ould one, sis 
he, — he call't the b'y his Christian name, but it's out 
iv my head now — " 

*' His Christian name ? " 

" Ay, so it's Jack I'll call him, for shortness, ' Jack,' 
sis he, * ye block'id, if ye don't make twain from one 
flesh, it's a dirrty, dape dungeon I'll put ye intil, an 
there ye'il stay, till ye've rason in ye.' Wid that, he 
sung out bloody murdther, for his horse, fut an dhrag- 
hoons, an they walked Jack down intil the cellar, an 
seein it was the mont of July, maybe, whin the ould 
praties was gone, an the new ones not gadthered, it's a 
roomy place was the praty-bin. They walloped Jack 



TAR BRUSH SKETCHED. 95 

intil it, bodily, an the King locked the door, an put the 
kay intil his pocket, an wint up the ladder agen. It 
was darrk an dirrty enough that the place was, an Jack 
all alone, but bein in a tundtherin passion, he huUaba- 
loo'd himself to slape, while the ould King kicked all 
his wives out iv his room up stairs, an had a nice pace- 
able dhrunk to himself, all alope. , By an by, Jack snores 
— 'Is that tundther ?' sis the ould King, an he paped 
down through the cracks iv the flure, upon Jack, — ' no, 
he's aslape, the unduthiful b'y, while his fadther's heart 
is breakin, an I'll be doin the same.' So, what wid the 
liquor, an the way he was in, the ould King shut his 
dead-lights down — an the wives were all so mighty quiet 
for fear they'd be shut up too, that they wint to slape 
for want iv betther empl'yment. Thin, sis the sojers, 
horse, fut, an dhraghoons, ' won't we slape, as well as 
our betthers 1 ' So they stretched themselves out, an 
the slapy god Vulkin clapped a blinker on the deck-lights 
of every modther's son an da'ter iv 'em." 

" What sleepy god was it? " 

" Oh, shut yer mout, Ben, don't I undherstan loga- 
rithms ? Well, while it was aslape they all were, a giant 
as lived next door, an owed the King a grudge, tought, 
by rason there was no noise, they were mighty quiet in 
the cabin — " 

" A reasonable conclusion." 

" To be sure it was. ' Well,' sis he, ' that dirrty spal- 
peen iv a King chated me last fall, like a heathen Turk 
as he is, an if I'd find 'em all aslape now ' — You must 
know, Ben, that the King an the giant took a praty field 
at the halves, an whin they came to divide the beautiful 
fruit, it was the biggest half that the King took, — * If 
I'd find him aslape now ! Here, Norah girl — ' " 



96 CORRECTED PROOFS. 

*' Who was Norah ? " 

*' His da'ter, to be sure." 

" The Turkish giant's daughter ?" 

" Oh, the giant was no Turk at all — paple iv that big 
bastely stature belong to no nation under the sun." 

'' True, Dennis." 

" An is'n't the troot I spake every day in the wake ? 
* Norah ! ' sis he—" 

'' How came her name to be Norah 1 That's Irish." 

'* How came it ? Now is'n't that a question for a 
scholard like you, Ben Fiferail? How came it? Why, 
that's what she was christened, to be sure. ' Norah,' 
sis he, * come wid me, an if we find that dirrty snipe iv 
a King aslape, won't we stale some iv his murphies ? — 
for all we have in the house for the bit dinner, the mor- 
row, ye might put intil yer eye, an see none the worse 
for, an I'd like a thrifie, a bushel or so, roasted for my 
lunch, the night.' An Norah, she was plazed, roguish 
little v/itch that she was — " 

''Ha! ha! ha!" 

" What 'ud ye be clafTerin at, Ben ? " 

*' At the giant's little daughter." 

" Ah, but ye'd laugh louder, could ye see her, Ben — 
she was fit to be laughed at, a quean. She clapped on 
her cloak an hood, an thripped afther her fadther, an 
they paped intil the windy, an there they was, all aslape, 
sound enough — the King, an his wives, an his bloody 
sojers, horse, fat an dhraghoons," 

" But I thought he drove his wives out of the room." 

" Could'n't they come back agen, ye booby, whin the 
King was sound aslape ? The giant slips in, an like a 
blackguard as he was, threads on the curls iv one iv the 
women. * Let go me hair ! ' sis she, for it was a cap- 



TAR BRUSH SKETCHES. 97 

pullin-fight wid one iv the odther fifty-nine wives, she 
was dramin iv — an the giant stood still a bit. Thin 
he goes along agen, aisy, an Norah takes down a bit 
rushlight as was stuck in the wall wid a wooden skewer, 
an follys him dov/n cellar. ' Now hould yer apurn, 
Norah,' sis he, ' an I'll pull out the boult,, for it's fast 
the door is.' Wid that, he pulls it out, as aisy as you'd 
sprout a murphy, an opens the door. It was faint the 
light was, an the giant fumbled about upon the ground 
— ' musha, good luck ! ' sis he^ ' here's a praty big enough 
for a moutful!' an he tuck up Jack's head-^'but it's a 
tundtherin long heavy sprout, the lazy baste iv a King 
has let grow till it — hould the light, Norah dear, while I 
twist it off.' Wid that, his murdtherin fingers was roun 
Jack's neck, an it's unaisy the poor lad's weason 'ud a 
felt, but sis Norah, sis she, ' bloody murdther, fadther ! ' 
an sis Jack in his troat, ' Ug-a-ug-a-rok-ok ! ' If it 'ud 
been a hot praty, he couldn't drop it quicker, an Nofah, 
the tinder sowl, took Jack's head in her lap, and waked 
him to slape, — but not before she'd let him take a pape 
at her own swate face, the slut. Grumpy enough the 
giant wint home, an Norah follay'd, but its full o' Jack's 
beautiful praty head, that her head was, an the narry 
chance he 'ad stood for it. Divil a bit did the racket 
rouse the ould King at all, or his sixty wives or his sojers. 

In the mornin, sis the ould King, ' Kathleen !' — that 
was Jack's mother. An she kem till him in a divil iv 
a fit o' shakin — for the King iv the Turks has an ugly 
way iv his own, o' tyin up his wives in a bag, an trowin 
them intil the Liffey — " 

*' Why that's a river in Ireland !" 

" Oh, it's not the Liffey I mane — it's the — " 

" Never mind Dennis." 
9 



98 CORRECTED PROOFS. 

" Niver mind 'tis thin — 'but he trows them intil some 
unhealthy strame or odther. Well, Kathleen she kem 
till him in a steWj an sis he, ' Go down an tell that rib- 
bilyious son o' yer own, that he must make up his mind 
forenint breakfast, for divil a moutful he gits till he does.' 
Wid that, down goes Kathleen, and sis to Jack, spakin 
betwane the cracks till him — ' Will ye be married Jack*?' 

* To be sure I will, modther dear,' sis he, ' an if fadther 
had a let me sane the beauthiful crature afore he shut 
me up, it isn't Jack Delany 'ud — ' " 

" Delany ? was that the King's name ? " 
" It'll do, for lack iv a betther — an why not? Isn't 
it a purtier name nor Guelph, any day in the wake? 

* What do ye mane? ' sis Jack's modther, sis she. ' I 
mane,' sis Jack, ' that I was throubled wid a cramp in 
my neck, last night that iver was, an my fadther, Saint 
Patrick's blessin on him, for that good dade, sint Mis- 
thriss Jack Delany that is to be, intil this place to com- 
fort me, an take out the kinks an cable-tier pinches.' 

* Och hone ! och hone ! it's crazed ye are, me darrlin 
b'y ! ' sis his modther. ' The divil a bit,' sis Jack, ' for 
ril take my bodily oath on the four Evangels — ' " 

"Ha! ha! ha! Did the Turkish prince svv^ear on 
the Evangelists?" 

" To be sure he did, an it's only yer own want of 
grace, that makes you laugh at houly things, Ben Fife- 
rail. Jack stuck to it tight that there was a woman in 
his room the night, an that he'd marry her wid his 
whole heart. By an by, sis his modther, to humor his 
madness like, as she tought, 'well Jack, to be sure 
there was a woman in the cellar, but it was one iv yer 
fadther's own 'wiv^s. Jack, darlint.' 'The divil a bit,' 
•sis Jack, ' for niver a wife o' my fadther's was half thd. 



TAR BRUSH SKETCHES. 99 

leddy, or the beauty, as visited Jack Delany last night.' 
* Do you say that to me ? ' sis his modther, * yer fadther's 
wife, an yer modther?' 'To be sure I do,' sis Jack, 
*■ troot is troot.' ^ Stay here an rot thin,' sis she. ' An 
go to the diviJ, modther, if ye plaze,^ sis he, for he was 
in a murdtherin passion. An up the ladder she wint." 

'' An excellent son, Dennis." 

" Thrue for you, all Ir — all Mahometan, Pagan, I 
mane — but hould yer tongue Ben. ' Och hone ! yer 
majesty,' sis Kathleen to the King, ' it's crazed that 
Jack is, intirely. He sis, the poor b'y, that there was a 
woman intil the dungeon wid him.' ' Oh,' sis the King, 
he's dramin only, an not crazy.' ' But he trated me 
like a brute baste,' sis she. ' That's natural,' sis his 
majesty, * An he tould me to go to the divil if I plazed.' 
Wid that the King jumped up — ' he is crazed for a troot,' 
gis he, ' it's out iv his head he is, for no man in his mind 
'ud give a woman ihat liberthy.' Thin the docther was 
sint for direc'ly, an Jack was brought out iv the dirrty 
hole into da)'-light agen, an he tould the same story over. 
Whin the King, his royal fadther, clapt his two good 
lookin eyes upon the big black spots on his son's neck, 
he looked mighty hard at a wife of his, that was hopin 
one day to see a son of her own on the trone of Turkey." 

" I thought the King had but one child." 

" Oh shut yer mout Ben. He looked hard at her, 
thinkin, maybe, that she'd be jealous of Kathleen, an 
would put Jack out iv the way, to make place for her 
own offspring — " 

" But I thought none of his wives but Kathleen had 
any children." 

'' Oh be aisy, Ben ! What 'ud I do wid yez now if 
there was women hearin you bodther ? He looked 



100 CORRECTED PROOFS. 

hard at her, an the offisher that had the bag in his 
hand, began to untie the sthrings — " 

''What bag?" 

*' Why didn't I tell ye, Ben, that the King of Turkey 
has a way wid him of trowin his wives intii the wather, 
tied up in a bag 1 The King looked hard at her, and 
thin he bethought himself how good she was about the 
pigs an the rist iv the poulthry, an made up his mind 
not to dhrown her till afther Christmas." 

" A careful King, Dennis." 

" Why shouldn't he be ? Now we'll lave the King, 
an step over intil the giant's house. Miss Nor ah was 
in a takin to be sure, all in the suds as she was, whin she 
saw the King comin across a bog there was back iv the 
house, an steppin intil the back door. ' The top iv the 
morning till ye. Miss Norah,' sis his majesty. Wid that 
she dhropped a curchey ; ' Ye' 11 tak a dhrop iv the dew 
the morn V ' To be sure 1 will,' sis he ; an while the 
King was dhrinkin the dhrap, she twitches off her 
washin apurn, an puts back her hair, the proud hizzy. 
' Ye're purty to look at,' sis he. ' Tank yer majesty 
kindly,' sis Norah. Wid that he wint from one thing 
to anodther, till he put his arrums roun her neck — " 

" Did he have to get on a stool ?" 

" Oh hould yer tongue, Ben. He put his arrums 
roun her neck, an at the blessed momint who should 
come in but the giant her fadther, with a big arrmful 
of turrf for the pot bilin. ' Tear an ouns,' sis he, an 
he trowed the whole on the heads iv em. ' Murdther,' 
sis Norah, ' ye've spilt the wash intirely.' " 

" What did the King say f 

" Divil a word, for a mJnit, by rason he was floored 
an astonished with the load of turrf laid on him. Di- 



TAR BRUSH SKETCHES. 101 

rec'ly the King come to his sinses he sprung to his 
fate, an sung out bloody murdther for his sogers, horse, 
fut an dhragoons, an they made a pris'ner iv the big 
blackguard iv a giant." 

*' Why didn't he knock 'em down by the dozen?" 

" Troth, Ben, I niver asked him. Thin the King, 
wid his head all blood, where it shtruck the corner iv 
the wash-tub, marched off the giant to his cabin for 
thrial, and Nor ah wint wid em, takin on. Whin they 
got to the house, there was Jack wid a pipe in his mout, 
sittin in the doorway. ' Praised be Allah !' sis he — " 

''Is that Jm^, Dennis?" 

"Was Jack Irish, Ben? Wasn't he a Pagan Ma- 
hometan heretic? ' Praise be to Allah !' sis he, ' Ye 
dirrty blackguard,' sis his fadther, ' is it glad ye are 
that my head's broke ?' ' Oh, St Pathrick's currse on 
yer head,' sis Jack — " 

" Is that a Turkish curse ?" 

" I'll shtop direc'ly, Ben, if you keep bodtherin. ' Bad 
luck to yer head,' sis Jack, ' it's the self same leddy 
that,' pointing to Norah, ' that cured me of the broken 
neck the night.' Thin the giant shivered in his brogues, 
for fear the praty stalin 'ud come out, an down he drap- 
ped on his marry-bones, an tould the whole story. An 
Norah thrembled, by rason she was modest, and Jack 
for joy he'd found her, an Kathleen for the drap usque- 
baugh she'd put in her praties and milk to comfort her 
the morn, and the King bekase he was in a divil iv a 
passion — an a divil of a shakin there was, to be sure> 
all round. Just at that minit along comes the King's 
confeshor, an by rason they were all quakin, a beautiful 
set of pinitents he tought he had, so he shpread his 
9* 



102 CORRECTED PROOFS. 

hands in a fadtherly way, aud gev 'em all absolution all 
togedther, widout askin any questions, to save time." 

"A Catholic priest f 

" Who else 'ud gev absolution, I'd like to know ? 
Thin whin they all found they were in a nice way, an 
falin plazed too, that they'd chated his riverance out iv 
what they wouldn't had so aisy if he'd taken the throu- 
ble to confess 'em, they made it all square over a pot 
iv liquor, an Norah an Jack were jined in the houly 
bands iv matrimony. An that's the whole story, Ben 
Fiferail." 

" But I don't understand what business a Catholic 
priest had in Turkey." 

" It's a wicked heretic you are, God forgive you, for 
callin their houly duthy in question at all. You never 
were up the Sthraits ?" 

" I told you no, once." 

'' Thin what do you know about it ?" 

" Why, I've read—" 

'' Oh, to the divil I pitch yer books — they're a pack 
of lies altogedther. I've been in Turkey meself " 



IN CALLAO HARBOR. 

" All hands ahoy ! " 

'' Aiu-aiugh ! " yawned Old Jack. " Wonder what 
day of the week it is." 

" You'll find out quick enough," said Bill British. 
" The second mate's riggin the 'ead pump — and means 
to begin divine sarvice with the .comandament, ' Re- 
member the sabbath-day and keep it 'oly ; six days 
shalt you labor and do all thy work, and on the seventh 
'oly-stone your decks, and hunder-run your cables.' " 



TAR BRUSH SKETCHES. 103 

'^ What's that you're growling about, Bill British ? " 
shouted the second mate through the hatch. 

'' Nothink, sir." 

In a few minutes we were fairly at it — water, '' holy- 
stones" and "big bibles" (as the sailors have chris- 
tened large blocks of stone used for scouring decks, 
particularly on the Sabbath,) were the order of the 
morning. The second mate, a long, slab-sided Yan- 
kee, who had the birth of second officer, on his second 
trip, by virtue of being ship's cousin, seemed desirous 
to emulate Hercules on a small scale, and turn all the 
water of Callao harbor through our scuppers. He had 
thrown fifteen buckets of water at a single rope-yarn 
which had effected a lodcrement under the lono--boat. 
Tired of handing water for his amusement, I dropped 
upon my knees, and, thrusting my head and shoulders 
under the boat, reached after the obstinate yarn. Just 
as I touched it with the end of my finger, zip ! came 
bucket number sixteen. Such a blow under the coun- 
ter of the old brig would have thrown her bows under. 
I chose to consider myself hors du combat, and crawled 
toward the forecastle. 

" Who sprinkled you that a-way ? " inquired Bill 
British. 

" The second mate." 

"What a go, ha! ha! well, was it a haccident, or 
done for fun ? " 

" He did'n't say, but I suppose it was for the reason 
a posteriori.'' My Yankee shipmates did not laugh till 
I perpetrated the joke — no bad one, by the way, for a 
half-drowned boy — but Bill's mouth, which had opened 
with a half-uttered laugh, when he first saw my wo- 
begone appearance, closed hermetically when I an- 



104 CORRECTED PROOFS. 

swered his question ; he " couldn't see nothink to laugh 
at in it." I dropped down the forecastle hatch ; hear- 
ing no inquiry for me, and concluding that Aquarius 
had come to the same conclusion as myself, viz. that I 
had done and suffered my share, proceeded to rig my- 
self in my " go-ashores." 

Stepped on deck just as the steward was getting the 
boat alongside, to go to market for the captain's break- 
fast — slipped into it, and took the bow oar. Cuff, who 
but for me would have been compelled to navigate with 
one oar, was too wise to stop to ask questions, and we 
were out of hail of the brig in a minute. Looked at 
the blade of my oar, as if I was afraid it would break 
without watching — thought I saw, under my hat rim, 
somebody beckoning on board the brig — but the yard 
and a half ribbon bothered me, and I dared not lose 
sight of my oar to look up. 

" Dere — dere — de secon mate's swingin his arms 
like de telegraf board, or a Dutch windmill." 

" Never mind, steward — he wants to bother you with 
some errand ; we can't stop now. Let him send the 
boat ashore himself, if he wants anything." 

Touched the quay, and I was ashore in no time. 
" Here, stop, take care de boat, while I go for market." 

" Let the boat take care of itself" 

"Take a horse. Jack?" said a Yankee negro who 
is established at Callao, for the praiseworthy purpose 
of fleecing Jack out of his loose change, giving him, 
in exchange, the privilege of abusing a wind-broken 
horse. 

'' Can't stop." 

And I did not stop till I was out of Callao, and under 
the town walls-— as I was afraid that walking bundle of 



TAR BRUSH SKETCHES. lOS 

midnight, the steward, might make a troublesome out- 
cry if he overtook me. Sat down and pulled ofi' my 
stockings — long stockings, (sailors have an aversion for 
socks,) rolled them up and put tiiem into my pocket. 
Saw steward looking intently up the road ; kept close — - 
communing with myself, as I lay beneath the mud wail, 
how many notes a blind fiddler need to lose while jump- 
ing over it. Just as I had come to the conclusion that 
such a leap need not interrupt his tune at all, my black 
friend gave up looking, and turned back into the town. 
And now% my trowsers rolled half way up my legs to keep 
out of the dust, my tarpaulin hat set jauntily on three 
hairs, and my stockings in my jacket pocket, behold 
me, with my land-tacks aboard, standing for the renown- 
ed city of Lima. There was no chance for mistake, 
any way — a straight road and only one lay before me. 
As I walked I busied myself in anticipations of the 
splendors of the Golden City, and jumbled all the feats 
of Pizarro and Fernando Cortez ; thought of ingots of 
gold, of Rolla and Cora, &c. d^c. I was overtaking a 
sort of a nondescript vehicle, and, as I neared it, began 
to hear indistinctly what seemed the howling of man or 
beast in horrid pain. All my Yankee blood rose within 
me, and Q,uixotte like, I crowded sail to overtake 
and relieve the sufferer. As I overhauled the chase^ 
the'; sound became to my ears singularly regular^ 
and rather too monotonous for howls of pain, unless 
the miserable object were groaning by gamut — with a 
bar rest between each note. Nevertheless I pulled 
foot. 

Poor axles ! they had never felt grease, and ail my 
tugging and sweating was to get the first intimation of 
the fact, that custom-house regulations forbade the use 



106 CORRECTED PROOFS. 

of oil upon the few carriages of burden which have 
crept into use, for the relief of the poor mules.^ If I 
run again, said I, as I walked by the driver, may I find 
good cause for it ! An odd looking genius, that driver, 
and worth describing. His slender nether limbs, cased, 
as low as the knee, in trunk breeches, looked like two 
plump pears inverted, and yoked together at the base, 
perambulating on their stems. About his middle was 
a sash — above, I can't remember, except that on his 
head was a large straw hat or sombrero. " Anda ! 
Anda ! (then an indescribable noise with the lips,) 
Anda, bestia ! " and ever and anon, as he bellowed to 
his skinny cattle, he punched their raw flanks with his 
goad. Yes, raw ! for on the hips of the poor beasts 
were places as large as the crown of a hat, where the 
hide was goaded through — the raw flesh festering and 
broiling in the sun. I felt my fingers close, and my 
arm bend — and — that was all, except that my teeth 
grated. The opportune thought occurred to me that 
the cattle would fare no better, and that I should fare 
worse, for interfering. 

I had reached the half way house. " Key whorah 
is ? " inquired I. 

The fellow looked at my sailor rig, and handed down 
a decanter, of course. 

'' No ! no ! " 

He changed it. 

" Blast your liquor ! " 

** Que dice vmd ? " (What do you say ?) 

*' K-e-y w-h-o-r-a-h i-s ? " 

" No lo entienden." 

*' Don't understand? Confound a book of conversa- 



TAtl BRUSH SKETCHES 107 

tions that won't learn a fellow to ask what o'clock 

It IS. 

''Ah! watty clock ! Que hora es? Le entiendo ; 
son las once y cuarto." As I had studied Spanish tlie 
evening before, with a particular reference to learning 
the time of day, I understood the answer— a quarter 
past eleven — better than the Spaniard did the ques- 
tion, pronounced " Kry inhorali is ? " — and satisfied 
with learning the hour, I was about budging again, 
when my friend of the bar stopped me, and made me 
understand that I was to pay for the liquor a moustachio- 
ed soldier had drunk, while I was murdering King 
Ferdinand's Spanish. I made wry faces at this propo- 
sition, but there was no get away — so I lugged out my 
solitary half dollar, and let him deduct the price there- 
from. I pocketed the change, and marched on, but found 
that my money, small as it was in amount, had secured 
me a friend, who seemed disposed to stick closer than 
a brother. I slackened my pace — he was in no hurry. 
I walked fast — and he cracked on. I crossed the road 
— and he was seized with a like impression, that the 
other side was pleasantest. Slow or fast, cross or re- 
cross, it was all one to my amigo. My shadow could 
not have followed my motions more faithfully. When I 
found that shaking him oiF was altogether out of the 
question, I submitted to the infliction with the best 
grace I could. 

My friend began trying to converse in broken Eng- 
lish — interspersed with an occasional Spanish word-— to 
which I attempted to reply in broken Spanish j with a 
sprinkling of English. But as the conversation could 
not be understood without the gestures — and as it is 
utterly impossible to place them upon paper without the 



108 CORRECTED PROOFS. 

assistance of Johnston, I shall not undertake it. I be- 
o-an to grow sadly leg-weary — not all the novelty of my 
situation and the peculiarly pleasant circumstances 
under which I was travelling, could persuade my limbs 
that they were bound to forget their sea-trim, on so un- 
reasonable an errand as their master was upon. Tak- 
ino- advantage of the shade afforded by trees which are 
planted on each side of the road for a couple of miles 
from the city, under which are placed seats at regular 
intervals, I brought myself to an anchor. Perceiving 
my rascally shadow about to seat himself with me, I 
threw myself at whole length upon the beach. Just 
escaped from the broiling sun, and still, stifling, bone- 
dry air of the road, which to this point was straight, 
uniform, shadeless, and, with the exception of one half- 
ruined village, and the half-way house, monotonous, 
my present situation was a perfect paradise — or would 
have been but for the infernal soldier, who still hovered 
over me like a turkey-buzzard over a prize, the pos- 
session of which has been disputed with him. Gradu- 
ally my vision became indistinct — objects faded before 
me — and in a trice I was on board the brig — the waters 
made a clean breach over her, and knocked me under 
the long-boat — I seized a spar to stop drifting about 
deck, and it changed in my hands to a tall Yankee, 
with the features and form of the second mate, who 
seized me by the throat — I struck at him, and — knocked 
down my dusky amigo, the soldier. " Oh you pica- 
roon !" said I, fairly awake. The fellow had been try- 
ing to relieve my neck of the kerchief, in which, find- 
ing the soldier determined to stick to me, I had taken 
the precaution to knot my money. 

Senor Soldado gathered himself up, and as he came 



TAR BRUSH SKETCHES. 109 

toward me, I could perceive that he was no model for 
a picture of Moses, if, as we read, that worthy was the 
meekest of men. I sprang to my feet ; fortunately 
enough a mounted soldier rode up. Don't mistake him 
for a horse-soldier, gentle reader, — he was mounted on 
an ass. Attracted by our position he reined in — no, — 
he stopped beating his animal, directly abfeast where 
we stood ; and the beast, who seemed to have learned 
that one step was expected for every blow, but no steps 
on any other condition, stopped short. My soldier im- 
mediately commenced a palaver with the stranger — and 
finding the tide setting against me, I appealed to him 
also — " Romper," said I, catching hold of my throat, 
'' romper me handkerchiefo — Bur-r-r," another gesture 
as if strangling — " Bur-r-r, — caro, murdero — muerty 
— steal a — en — paysoce — bur-r-r-r, dollars," and here 
another grand flourish. I thought I had explained to a 
miracle, that the soldier had tried to strangle and rob 
me, and looked up for a sheepish, guilty face on the one 
part, and protection on the other — but both blockheads 
laughed as if they had the cachinations of a life-time 
to exhibit within the half hour, — and the mounted one 
was for making off, when I made him understand that 
I should like to ride. I had better success in this, than 
in complaining of the robbery, and was soon placed on 
the little beast behind his master. 

Thus mounted, I gained nothing in time, for the two 
heroic defenders of their country's liberty commenced 
a conversation — to accommodate which, the pace of the 
donkey was regulated to a slow walk. I could not suf- 
ficiently admire the materials of which the army of the 
Patriots of which we had heard so much, was com- 
posed — as I had ample opportunity to observe — the 
10 



110 CORRECTED PROOFS. 

number of idle soldiers increasing as we drew nearet" 
the city. Coal black, and all the intermediates to 
white, or as near white as the climate will permit, In- 
dians, and all the varieties occasioned by intermarriages 
between Spaniard and Indian, and Indian and Negro. 
Their dress was abominably coarse — blue, and faded 
blue doth, with slashes of red flannel variously put on. 
Our arrival at the gate of the city caused rio small 
merriment among the loungers a^boat the guard-house. 
In the heat of their merry discussion upon their com- 
rades' protege, myself, I slid down unperceived, from 
behind my obliging conductor, and, v/ithout stopping 
even to thank him, turned the first corner. 

The first person I met after doubling the corner, 
was my ship-mate, old Jack Kellum — and most glo- 
riously corned he was too — so much so, that I don't 
believe he v/ould have seen me, if in my hurry I had 
not plumped my head into his bread-basket. The en- 
counter v/hich brought me up standings would have 
carried him down falling, had it not so happened that 
I pushed him bodily against the dead-v/all of a court, 
shaking the plastered bamboo so roughly, that it is a 
wonder the crazy concern did not go by the board. 
The whole family, who were dozing a sort of a half 
siesta in th« court, sprang to the door ; the father, with 
a hopeful son at each wing, in the van, vociferating all 
sorts of Spanish oaths, supported by the mother and 
daughters, an uncertain number, in the rear. These 
latter peeped most maliciously from under their long 
black eyelashes, over the shoulders of the male crea- 
tures, and I expected nothing short of being cut up 
fend stuffed into paper cigars, like pig's meat into sau- 
sages ; when a new danger appeared from another 



TAR BRUSH SKETCHEg. Ill 

quarter. A body of soldiers, headed by my old friends 
of the road, made their appearance, and I, Ben Fife- 
rail, seemed to occupy the situation of the ass between 
two stacks of hay, reversed ; for, inasmuch as that sa- 
pient beast did not know which stack to begin upon, 
and came near being starved, in consequence, I did not 
exactly know which of my heaps of friends would eat 
me with the best appetite, and in that delicate situation 
came as near dying of fright as my four-footed proto- 
type did of starvatioii. All at once, my pursuers came 
to a dead stand — doffed their hats, and commenced 
making the sign of the cross industriously — my amigos 
of the gate-v/ay ceased chattering their imprecations, 
and assumed devotional attitudes. I looked in the di- 
rection to which their eyes were turned, and saw a pro- 
cession, which, upon its first heaving in sight, at a long 
distance, had caused the sudden suspension of hostili- 
ties. It was headed by priests, bearing the graven, or 
rather waxen image, of some adorable saint or saint-ess, 
flanked on each side by a bare-headed canaille, and 
followed by devotees. " Here was a group for a painter,'* 
is a common expression with scribblers, but I can tell 
thrice as good a story. I have three groups to exhibit, 
gentle reader. There — to the left, see a dozen sol- 
diers, as still and mute as if Medusa's ugly mug had 
been popped into their faces ; their heads, uncovered, 
give one species of the entomologist's particular favorites 
a rare opportunity to sun themselves. Here, a few steps 
to the right, are the amiable family whose slumbers 
Jack's shock disturbed — their scarcely stifled rage 
shining through the thin veil of outward devotion, like 
a lamp through gauze, or a ground-glass shade. They 
have made up their minds to give us a threshing, or 



112 CORRECTED PROOFS. 

send us to the calaboza, as soon as the procession has 
passed — but religion before every thing — even before a 
knock-down. Group three consists of two figures — old 
Jack Kellum, pressed up as firmly against the wall as 
Old Hickory's effigy is against the cut-water of the 
Constitution, and making a figure of nearly the same 
altitude. Old Jack will keep his hat on, saint or no 
saint. I took it off just now, but he jammed it on again, 
with a blow from his top maul fist ; so that it sets as 
snug to his eyebrows as if those same were made to fit 
it, as the cheeks of the top-mast head support the cross- 
trees. Braced against, and in front of him, to hold 
him up, behold me, Ben Fiferail, my hat off, legs ex- 
tended, and body leaning forward against him, in about 
the same angle with the ground that a derrick makes 
with the deck. Having thus traced my figures, I shall 
do what no painter can, put them in motion. The plot 
thickens. The procession approaches, and the soldiers 
have edged close to us. The sign of the cross is made 
by the pious family, with increased rapidity of fingers — 
and the manipular zeal seems to have been caught also 
by our soldier friends, who have now worked up close 
to us. Obliged to relax my hold upon Jack — I am 
crowded from him by the multitude, — but one of the 
soldiers has seized me by the collar with the left hand, 
while he crosses himself with his right. Casting an 
eye back to the spot where I left my comrade, I see his 
tall form, hat and all, notwithstanding the uncovered 
crowd, swaying to and fro like a lofty poppy in a bed of 
more diminutive companions. A shout of maledictions 
rises among the angry multitude against the heretic, 
who obstinately persists in keeping his head covered, in 
presence of his or her saintship, — I never learnt the 



TAR BRUSH SKETCHES. 113 

sex of this particular divinity. There ! somebody aims 
a blow at his head — the tap which was intended to take 
his hat off, has taken his body off — its legs. Tottering, 
staggering to his fall, down he goes ! there is a rush to 
the spot — the melee thickens — my soldier loosens his 
grasp — and I am — missing. Jack soon rose, and, as I 
left the field, I caught one glimpse at his arms — not his 
coat-of-arms exactly, but his arm-^rial bearings not- 
withstanding — two arms rampant, one big stone coucJi- 
anf, and, according to appearances, soon to be hurl- 
ant, — to the great and manifest bodily danger of the 
divinity, and the attendant black gowns and bare 
heads. I did not wait the issue, but im^proved the hub- 
bub to make myself scarce. 

Old Jack came off the next morning, minus money, 
hat, shoes, kerchiefs, and shirt ! The latter he gave 
the boatman for bringing him off. We never could un- 
derstand exactly how he got clear of the enraged Cath- 
olics — nor could he, I believe — though he swore he 
drove the whole gang, and was left in possession of the 
street, and that he marched fore and aft in it with a 
Yankee flag spread, till dusk — ahne ; " and," he added, 
giving a significant glance at me, " I didn't want no 
chicken-hearted run-a-wavs to come within hail of me." 



«« ' From Saccarap to Portland pier 
I drag-ged lumber many a year ; 
And whsa I couldn't no longer dravi', 
That Vv'as the reason they killed me for' — '* 

" Avast there! Jack. You don't mean to say that 
this horse can draw no longer. Why, he's drawn half 
the teeth from my head." 

'"Orse?" 

10* 



114 CORRECTED PROOFS. 

" Yes, Bill." 

'' But this 'ere beef isn't 'orse meat ! " 

" To be sure it is." 

Bill dropped the bone he had hitherto held on upon 
with devouring affection, and thrust his knife back in 
the sheath — muttering, as he did so, a curse on the 
bloody country that victuals her ships with 'orse-flesh. 
If he had only known how to write, what a glorious 
statistical chapter upon the food of American seamen, 
the incident would have furnished ; the number of horses 
killed annually, the age at which they become super- 
annuated, and the number of houses in the trade ! 
What a pity that Bill had not been an author ! I shall 
not say who slipped into his place, and played knife to 
tfee junk he deserted, lest the reader should uncharitably 
impeach the the truth of the genealogy of the food 
which Bill " greatly gulped at." 
" Turn to there ! " 

*' Ay, ay, sir ! " — from half a dozen. But what were 
we to turn to upon ? Not a rope-yarn was out of place 
from the deck to the truck. The junk on board (not 
salt junk) was worked up, every strand, and we had 
neither to discharge, or take in cargo. Ah, there we 
have it — Snowball is passing the muskets and cutlasses 
from the cabin, the two blunderbusses, and an odd 
horserpistol. 

Perhaps a little the hardest work in the world is to 
do nothing — or, what is next to nothing, to be employed 
upon something which you are sensible can be of no 
possible utility. Here we were, wearing out our knives 
upon rusty muskets, to give the mate an opportunity to 
enter in his log, "overhauled and cleaned fire-arms." 
The monotony was, however, relieved by a voluntary. 



TAR BRUSH SKETCHES. 115 

performed by the ship's dog, upon the body of the black 
soldier, who was stationed on board as an officer of the 
customs. Tiger was a large, noble fellow, possessed of 
more just and accurate notions of meiim and tuum than 
many bipeds. When, therefore, he saw the black sol- 
dier, after finishing his dinner, deposite in his cap some 
four or five pounds of ship-bread, he, the dog, being 
decidedly of opinion that such an appropriation of ship's 
stores was never contemplated by the owners, resolved 
upon recovering the spoils. Like a sensible beast he 
went to work, not rudely and noisily, but silently depu- 
ted himself a spy upon the motions of the soldier, who 
had composed himself for a siesta, in a shady nook on 
deck, with the cap containing the plunder at his head. 
Tiger went toward him in a lazy sort of a way, as if 
with no particular business in view — stopped at an un- 
suspicious distance from the cap — cast half an eye at 
it, and then looked up in my face inquiringly. 

" Certainly, Tiger. He has no more business with 
the bread, than you have with Bolivar's moustaches." 

A hearty laugh from all hands roused the soldier, to 
see the dog trot aft and deposite one recovered biscuit 
at the cook's feet. Upon his return, he found the cap 
empty, as the soldier, who disapproved altogether of this 
species of military foray, had taken the bread from his 
cap, placed it under his head, and covered his head 
with his cloak. Ascertaining its location. Tiger planted 
both feet on the head of the soldier, and commenced 
digging industriously. The soldier was glad to purchase 
peace by the surrender of another biscuit, which the 
dog disposed of as before, cheered by the boisterous 
mirth of the whole crew, who could hardly restrain 
themselves within any bounds. Even the grim soldier 



116 CORRECTED PROOFS. 

began to enjoy the fun of the thing, though it was en- 
tirely at his expense. Again Tiger returned, but in the 
mean time, the provision had again changed its stowage^ 
and was placed under the soldier's body. Tiger's nose 
guided him exactly to the spot, and he commenced op- 
erations directly over the hidden treasure, greatly to 
the injury of the uniform of the Peruvian Republic. 
Another biscuit purchased a temporary ransom. On 
the part of the soldier, the plan of the campaign was 
now altered; he replaced the bread in his cap, and up- 
on Tiger's next approach, gave him a pointed intima- 
tion of his intention to defend to the death, the remain- 
der of his plunder. " Oh, well," said Tiger, that is, he 
seemed to say it, " it's not worth making so much fuss 
about, so rU sleep on it,"' — and down he dropped, his 
head on deck between Jiis fore-paws, and his body com- 
fortably disposed for a canine nap. 

*'Ha! dam a nigger tief! " cried the steward, mIio 
now showed his ebony face on the forecastle. " Seize 
'urn. Tiger ! " 

But Tiger evidently had no inclination to " seek the 
bubble reputation" at the bayonet's point, and it was 
voted unanimously that he was an arrant coward. So 
goes the world. Messieurs the people have no mercy 
for their servants, but goad them on, beyond their 
strength — and hunt them for cowards, whenever they 
show any signs of fatigue, or love of life. Every body 
can remember when it was preferred as a serious charge 
against a naval officer, that he stooped to dodge a chain- 
;shot ! 

^' Hello ! " continued the steward, " where dat blood 
for, on dog's nose ? Guess you Bill British been 'nocu- 
late him for coward." 



TAR BRUSH SKETCHES. 117 

*' Get out, you Hethiopian, or 111 shoot you ! " 
*' Oh don't, now ; who sarve a de grog, nigger gone 
to he wooden jacket 1 

' When de cap'un go ashore. 

An de mate he hab de key, 
You want a nigger steward 

When it's grog time o' day. 

Grog time o' day !' " 

A sharp, angry bark from the dog, and he had the 
soldier by the neck. He had watched him, till he saw 
him off his guard, and then pounced on him, like a 
Tiger, as he was. Immediate interference was neces- 
sary, to save the soldier's life, for the dog would most 
assuredly have finished him, had he been let alone. 
The steward was in the very ecstacy of delight — he 
hugged Tiger, and jumped round the forecastle, like a 
baboon. " Hee ! choke a dam Cholo nigger ! Top his 
weason, a brack sojer — good feller, Tiger ! " The gam- 
bols of the dog and his friend had become too annoying 
— it was evident that it had been grog time with the 
steward. His eyes protruded from his head, and were, 
at the same time, dim with the mist with which alcohol 
smothers the vision. 

" I tell ye, you Hethiopian, I'll shoot you, if you, 
don't quit your monkey shines ! " 

'* ' When a buckra man come, 

Hoi 'um gun up higher. 
Tell a nigger shoot hiin. 



er he tan fire 



'pecially when a gun hab no powder in him ! Hee !" 
And Ebony turned a somerset over the heel of the bow- 
sprit. 

" ' Possum up a gum tree. 
Racoon in de holler,' — 



118 CORRECTED PROOFS. 

Hee ! good feller, Tiger. Nigger gib you manaverlins, 
chickenny leg, an piece o' pork ? Choke a nigger sojer, 
hey 1 — Hab a pension for it ! 

' I git up in de mornia 

At de break o' day, 
Look out de windy 

Canoe gone away — 
Den I tell my Dinah 

Who de debble steal it, 
Can't catch him fish now — 

Looky you, Bill British, you take aim wid a gun ? Wha 
for no do dat on Bunker Kill ? Wha for let a Yankee 
pick him off like squerrel, hey ? 

* Jackson he a fightin man, 

So dey say, so dey say ! 
Jackson good at packin ham. 

So dey say," so dey say !' 

Wha for you no like 'um cotton bag, Bill British? 
Hooh! 

* Massa, missy no hke-a me 
Cause I no eat a brack eye pea. 

All day— all day !' " 

Bill cocked a gun. 

" Hab bucket a water fix-a de primin ? 

* In-a San Domingo 

Buckra run away, 
Lefi 'um in a hurry, 

'Cause him couldn' tay — * 

Make ready ! Took aim !" 

Bill, laughing, followed the steward's orders. 
" Now Bill, fire an be dam — I can stand- " 



The steward did not spring from the deck — he stag- 
gered three steps forward — and fell. His head struck 
directly in the face of the patriot soldier — there was a 



TAR BRUSH SKETCHES. 119 

twitch — a convulsive movement, and it rolled on deck. 
The soldier sprang to his feet — his head and face be- 
smeared with blood. Soldier though he was, he had 
never before seen an actual specimen of his trade. He 
brushed the blood from his eyes — threw his bayonet over 
the side — then his musket — and would have launched 
the whole of the ship's arms, had he not been prevented 
— so frantic was he in his horror. 

The captain was on shore. The mate, who, was in 
the cabin, hea~ring the report, ran on deck. When he 
reached the forecastle, Bill stood on the very spot where 
he had discharged the musket, which he still held in his 
hand, the muzzle within two inches of the deck, and 
his finger still on the trigger. The big blue veins on 
his hands were strongly marked through the livid olive 
hue of his skin — the nearest approach to paleness which 
his sunburnt complexion would admit. His eyes, though 
fixed upon the spot where the dead man lay, evidently 
took cognizance of no object. Motionless as he stood 
— scarcely breathing — a fev/ straggling hairs giving ad- 
ditional wildness to his haggard countenance, as his 
head almost reclined on his breast — for the corpse was 
scarce a musket's length from him— he could hardly be 
likened to a living statue. 

*' Sad work ! sad work this !" said the mate. 

The voice restored the unfortunate homicide to con- 
sciousness — but not to recollection. He dropped the 
musket — stared wildly about him, as if unacquainted 
with the events of the few preceding moments, and de- 
sirous of reading them in the faces of the bystanders. 
All was silence. Presently his eye caught the pros- 
trate form of th« steward, imbedded in its gore ; — a 
howl of agony — a bound — a splash — he was overboard. 



120 CORRECTED PROOFS. 

Half the crew were in the boats in an instant. While 
they were fishing for the poor fellow who had thus acci- 
dentally sped the steward to his long home, I examined 
the body. The ball entered directly over the upper lip 
— the face was filled with grains of powder, and the 
skin burnt, so near had the murdered man stood to the 
muzzle of the musket. His eyes were untouched, and 
stood out in glassy deadness. Oh, it was horrible ! 
though not a muscle of his face was distorted. The 
body was still warm, but pulsation must have^ceased on 
the instant that the ball struck. The flow of blood was 
immense — owing, in a measure, to the alcohol, which 
had emboldened the poor devil to face what, when sober, 
he always had a childish dread of — a musket. 

The gun which was the instrument of his death was 
different from the rest, and was left on, board by a sol- 
dier, on the previous voyage, when the brig had been 
used as a transport — charged. "We examined the fore- 
mast, and every object in the range of the shot, to find 
where it struck, after killing the steward, but could 
find no traces of it. On the next day, the surgeon and 
mates of the frigate United States, then laying in Cal- 
lao, dissected the head. The ball was found lodged 
in the vertebrae of the neck, flattened. Much specu- 
lation, had among the crew, why the ball did not pass 
througli the head, was settled by Dennis, who insisted 
that "■ it was parfickly plain. Why man, (says he,) the 
lead didn't get head-way on at all, seein it was close to 
the muzzle that the steward stood." 

Bill was soon taken from the water, more dead than 
alive. After recovering him he was perfectly quiet, 
although we had expected violence from him. Indeed, 
prostrated as his strength was by his mental sufferings, 



TAR BRUSH SKETCHES. 121 

and his forced escape from drowning, he could not but 
be weak. The soldier, a raw recruit, after he was 
made to understand that the unfortunate occurrence 
was purely accidental, was less uneasy — but the speci- 
men he had seen sickened him of his trade; and when 
we were collected enough to notice him, it was discov- 
ered that he had removed from his clothing every thread 
of the red facings and slashes. He was relieved the 
next morning, and went ashore minus musket and cap 
— how he fared at the barracks for such unsoldierlike 
conduct we never knew, but it is to be presumed that 
he certainly did not get promoted — farther than the 
whipping-post. 



A mist, thick as the boasted English fog, settles every 
night on Callao, with any thing but " healing on its 
wings." It is redolent of fever and ague — ay, redolent 
— for one can snuff up the miasma. As the vessels lay 
at anchor, head to the wind, the white paint on the bows 
gathers a nasty yellow tinge, like the cheeks of a poor 
fellow with the jaundice. It is a capital school for 
painters, beginners I mean, who are just learning to 
shade — for the dirty yellow on the bows melts away to 
the clean white streak on the quarters, with a diminu- 
tion of shade almost imperceptible, and as regular as if 
an artist had laid it on. The ends of the jib-booms 
look as if a charge of powder had been blown on each, 
smoking it a short distance, and leaving the rest white. 
Stand on the heel of the bowsprit and look aloft, and 
you are almost ready to swear that the masts and 
yards are bronzed — step aft and look from the quarter- 
deck, and they are white. The days are dry after ten 
11 



122 CORRECTED PROOFS. 

o'clock, arid, till night comes, with the palpable fog I 
have attempted to describe. 

** Faugh!" said I, as I poked my head above the 
hatch ; " I wish Callao and its fogs, St Lorenzo and its 
sand-banks, at the " 

'• Whist, Benjamin Fiferail ! don't be talking that way 
iv the ould one. They say he is always convanient to 
yer elbow when you spake iv him. Suppose, my dear, 
he should clap his hand on yer shoulder now, an whis- 
per, in the softest way in the worrld, ' Benjamin, honey, 
what 'ud ye have o' me ? ' " 

" Does the devil talk with a brogue, Dennis?" 

"To be sure he does. He can take his choice, ye 
undherstan, an isn't he cunning enough, the ould sar- 
pint, to know that a tip iv the brogue jist puts the finish 
on to any man's spache? " 

" But how shall we find out — I never heard him speak, 
did you ? " 

" No, but a fourteent cousin o' mine — a rollockin 
blade — he was by me modther's side, an she was an 
O'Donahoe — " 

''Never mind the relationship — did your cousin hear 
the devil speak ? " 

" Exac'ly, an more nor that, he seed him too. He's a 
jontale, nice-lookin body, altogedther — barrin, maybe, 
that he is not so well shod, an is careful regardin lettin 
one see his feet — oh ! it's an ugly cloven foot he has." 

" Tell as all about it, Dennis." 

"To be sure I will ; won't it give the watch a lift, a 
bit talk? Well ye see, I knew Phelim O'Donahoe, bein 
he was my fourteent cousin, or somewhere about that 
lay, I can't say exac'ly — " 



TAR BRUSH SKETCHES. 123 

" Never mind, never mind ; come to the devil as quick 
as possible." 

" Oh, shut yer mout now, Ben Fiferail — if yeVe a 
mind to come that way, do it widout luggin me in at all. 
But I'll tell ye the yarn, an thin ye'll find it's no such 
ihrifle to chate the divil, Benjamin. Phelim was a rol- 
iockin blade, if he was a cousin iv mine — " 

" That's three times you've said it, Dennis." 

" Oh, get out now, will ye be quiet at all ? Cousin Phe- 
lim was a rollockin blade, an he stood one day in Mod- 
ther McGraws's potheen shop — two odther blades there 
was wid him. Sis they, ' Phelim, it is you must pay 
the drap liquor.' ' To be sure it is,' sis Phelim, for he 
was not the chap at all to refuse to spind money, per- 
tic'ly when he hadn't a farden about him, which was 
pretty much his case every day in the wake. ' Come 
here, Modther McGraw, an gev us a moutful iv the cra- 
thure.' ' Is it you that want it, Phelim O'Donahoe? Thin 
divil a drap do ye get at all, till ye've ped the ould score.' 
' Oh, come now, Modther McGraw.' ' Get out, for an 
imperdent dog ! ' ' Blisthriss McGraw ! ' ' No blarney 
now, Phelim.' ' Blarney, blarney, Misthriss McGraw, 
it's no blarney at all to be sayin you're purty an young 
lookin — it's Misthriss they should call ye, an not Mod- 
ther, let who will be spakin to ye.' * It's an insinervatin 
way ye have, Phelim O'Donahoe,' sis Modther McGraw, 
as she looked in the bit lookin-glass, stuck wid a nail 
to the wall, ' an if I let you have the usquebaugh, whin 
will I get my pay, Phelim ? ' 'Oh Modther, Misthriss 
McGraw, I mane, ye'll wait while I go to the odther 
strate, an get my pay for a small job, jist.' * Well, Phe_ 
lim, ye'll lave yer jacket wid me the while? ' ' To be 
sure I will,' sis Phelim, for the whiskey was before him. 



124 CORRECTED PROOFS. 

an he wouldn't stan upon thrifies. So they drank the 
drap usquebaugh, till they made it a half pint apiece 
they had intil them, and Modther McGraw tould them 
that divil the drap more they'd get." 

" Well Dennis, I don't see what all this has to do with 
the devil, except that you take his name in vain every 
five minutes." 

" Oh, you put me out now ; where was I? " 
" In Mother McGraw' s poteen shop. It is lucky I 
did put you out, for you never got out of a grog shop 
alone, in your life." 

*' Don't be talkin that blackguardin way, Benjie, but 
jist tell us where I left off" 

" Where Mother McGraw refused the liquor." 
*'Ah, thrue for you. Modther McGraw tould that 
rollockin blade, Phelim O'Donahoe, my m^odther's four- 
teent cousin, that divil a drap more he'd get, an wid that 
Phelim got in a wild murdtherin passion ; ' Modther 
McGraw,' sis he, * you ugly ould ' — but it wouldn't be 
fair, Benjie, to tell what Phelim called her in his cups, 
bekase, whin he was himself, he was respec'ful an per- 
lite — he had the O'Donahoe blood in him, like meself, 
seein he was me modther's fourteent cousin. Modther 
McGraw she tould him he'd betther get his pay for that 
job, an that started Phelim, bekase, if the troot must 
come, he'd no money to resave at all, an only tould her 
the story to get the drap liquor. ' Modther McGraw/ 
sis he, * gev me my coat, if ye plaze.' ' Phelim O'Don- 
ahoe,' sis she, ' ye don't get it till ye pay me my bit bill 
iv tree shillins an four pince.' Wid that Phelim makes 
a grab at the jacket, but Modther McGraw^ to kape it 
safe, she stuck her purty arms through the slaves,, aa 
away she wint to dale out a hap'worth iv farden-candles 



TAR BRUSH SKETCHES. 12d 

to a gossoon as spake for them. Whin Modther Mc- 
Graw had put on the coat, she tought she had floored 
Phelim intirely, but what does he do, the spalpeen, but 
make a dirty grab at a sailor jacket as laid on the table, 
an boult direc'ly. Modther McGraw she springs to 
the door, but a respecthable lady, an kaper iv a potheen 
shop, wouldn't be sane in the strate wid a man's coat 
on, an whin she'd pull it off, it stuck to her shoulders, 
like St. Patrick's currse to the toads. * Pat Donelly,' 
sis she, (that was one iv Phelim's friends,) ' help me off 
wid this garmint.' ' Divil burn my fingers if I do,' sis 
he. An seein she was a big woman, Benjie, an Phe- 
lim but a withe of a man, the coat wouldn't come off 
for the askin. So while she was tryin to lug off the 
garmint, Phelim made a pair of legs do the clane thing 
for him — " 

" But Dennis, how could that be, when he had drank 
whiskey enough to put his legs in irons ? " 

" You belave it ? A half pint is a drap in the say, to 
a stout Irishman." 

" But you said Phelim was slender as a withe." 

*' By the powers, Ben, if you mane T should talk, you 
must hould yer tongue. Phelim walked down to the 
quay, an wint to houldin a post up. Along comes the 
skipper iv a brig that lay convanient to the wharf; * my 
man,' sis he, ' are you an able sayman ? ' At that, sis 
Phelim, ' able ! I'd like to try the shillaleh wid him that 
'ud dispute it.' ' You're the fine fellow I want, jist,' 
sis the skipper, ' an you shall take the place iv a run- 
away, for I'll be goin to say wid the tide.' So betwane 
palaverin an drivin, he gets Phelim, who knowed as 
much of saymanship as our jintleman passenger, aboard 
11* 



126 CORRECTED PROOFS, 

iv his brig, nii to say they wiiit, to be sure, that aveniii> 
The name iv the brig has gone from me altogedther/' 

" Never mind the name, Dennis." 

" Niver mind 'tis, thin. Well, Phelim, as you may 
suppose, didn't know the fore-topsil halliards from the 
bucket-rope, an he behaved like — " 

" A blundering Paddy." 

'' Get out, you biackguardin tief o' the world. Phe- 
lim did tumble round the deck to be sure, like a pig in a 
coach. Whin he'd lift up his leg to step, he couldn't 
somehow put down his fut where he meant to, at all. 
The brig on the wind as she was, an a short choppin 
say runnin, she jerked round, like a pace of limon in a 
punch bowl, wid two or tree good chaps exercisin the 
ladle." 

" You're an unfeeling son of a gun, Dennis." 

" What for, I'd like to know ] " 

" Why, for mentioning punch — it makes my tongue 
as dry as a powder magazine." 

" What's the dijBfer whedther yours be dhry or wet, 
an it's mine must do the talkin, if ye'd let me ? I wish 
i^'ud dhry stiff, an thin ye'd kape it still a bit." 

" It's too dry now, Dennis." 

" Rig it out intil the fog thin, and that'll take out 
the kinks ; hould it still, any way, or I'll lash a pump- 
boult athwart your muzzle, and sling a spritsail-yard 
for you, my darlin. Will ye be aisy wid yer nonsense ? 
Well, as I was a sayin, Phelim couldn't find his say 
legs, and the ould brig — " 

" Was she an old brig ?" 

Dennis took no other notice of this interruption than 
to shake his fist in my face. 

'' The ould brig knocked him about wickedly. A 



TAR BRUSH SKETCHES. 127 

pitch, an Phelim 'iid fetch up agen the windlass — a send 
aft, an you might find his carcass somewher-e on deck 
by the main hatch — a lee lurch, an he'd be stoppin the 
scupper, an a wedther roll 'ud tumble him upon the 
spars alongside the long-boat. And thin the whiskey 
he'd drunk — he was always shy o' reckonin w id Modther 
McGraw, but Ould Niptin made him begin to cast up 
accounts direc'ly. ' Augh 1 murdther,' sis he, ' augh — 
augh — I'll die suddinly — augh — by inches ! — if Father 
O'Rourke were here to gev me absouloution jist — not for 
the whiskey — I've not kep a drap iv it — augh — but 
for the jacket I stowle, any how — augh — urruck — augh! 
— murdther ! — augh — ur — urruck — murdther ! — murd- 
ther ! ' ' Here ! ' sis the skipper, ' catch hoult here b'ys, 
an get a pull o' this fore shate ! ' Phelim couldn't see 
anything that looked like a shate, poor divil — but a bit 
o' somethin white in the long boat — so hoult he grabbed 
iv it, and the cook sung out bloody war to him — ' Stop, 
stop,' sis the nagur, ' what do you mane at all, by twitchin 
the kiver from the fresh bafe V " 

" Did the nagur talk Irish V 

" Oh, hould your tongue : now I think iv it, he wasn't 
a nagur. The captin heard the row, an belavin it was 
the liquor in him, an not his ignorance, intirely, he 
tould Phelim to go below in a minnit — " 

" He didn't disobey orders then." 

" You're right he didn't ; when he was tould to go 
below, he wasn't long a doin that thing. Down he wint 
and staid a wake — what are you laughin at, you divil?" 

" To hear your circumstantial detail." 

" My what !" 

" You seem to know all the particulars." 

" And why not ? Wasn't Phelim my own cousin, 



128 CORRECTED PROOFS. 

fourteent cousin by my modther's side? Wasn't she an 
O'Donahoe, and — " 

" Oh thunder, yes ; don't get into your family tree 
again, Dennis." 

" It's as good a tree as yours, I'm thinkin, and bears 
a sprig of shillaleh for him that's blackguardin it." 

" Certainly, Dennis, true as the gospel — I'll hear about 
it some other time; now I want to hear of Phelim." 

" Don't bodther me thin. Phelim stuck to the bunk 
till it was a bucket of wather they began to talk about, 
and thin one fine day he crawled out and kem on deck. 
' Ah Phelim, lad,' said the skipper, ' glad to see you 
look betther.' ' Thank yer honor,' said Phelim., but he 
tought it was ungintlemanly, any way, that the skipper 
didn't axe him intil the cabin, to take somethin com- 
fortin. ' Here, Phelim, its wake you are now, take the 
helium, and let Jack go to work — she steers aisy.' 
Well Phelim he took hoult, and the skipper went for* 
rud. * Full an by,' sis Jack, sis he — ' ay, ay,' sis Phelim, 
but divil a bit did he know what that mint at all. 
Phelim let the craft do her own steerin, and direc'ly 
she was clane off before it. * Kape her up four pints 
more,' bellered the skipper ; ' where the divil are you 
goin wid her ? — Let the wedther lache of the topsil lift 
a bit.' Phelim down wid the helium, but it was hit 
altogedther, and no good wit wid him, as you'll find 
shortly." 

" Oh, I'd swear it, Dennis. No countryman of yours 
ever got into the right course, except by accident. 
He must run into it." 

" If you run your swate face agen a bunch of bones 
tied up ugly, it'll be no blundher of mine, Ben Fiferail, 
but your own fault altogedther. As I tould ye, Phelim 



TAR BRUSH SKETCHES. 129 

clapped the helium down, and the ould brig kem up 
direc'ly. Purty soon there was a divil of a shakin 
among the canvass — Phelim didn't like the looks of it 
at all, but he thought what was sarce for goose 
was sarce for gandther, an if puttin the helium 
down 'ud put the ould craft right one time, by the same 
token it would anodther. So the more he shook the 
wind out, the harder he clapped the helium down, the 
captin singin out ' what do ye mane, ye bloody black- 
guard — its all aback ye'll be direc'ly ; up, up !' — Wid 
that Phelim looked up. ' Up wid yer helium,' sis the 
skipper. Then Phelim laid hoult of the thiller head, 
and thried to jerrk it up, as ye'd draw a pump-boult wid 
a handspike — an not doin nmch that way, down he 
dhropped on his marrer bones, and claps his shoulder 
under it. ' Oh, you big Irish fool,' sis the skipper, an 
he run aft — " 

" Let me ask one question, Dennis." 

" Where'd be the use of deny in, when you'd axe, 
wedther or no !" 

" Why the deuce didn't the skipper come sooner, 
when he saw Phelim cutting such qualms ? He might 
have slapped her flat aback, and took out some of her 
light sticks." 

*' Don't be such a gossoon now, as to think all this 
took as long as it does me to tell it. The skipper kem 
as quick as he could, an laid hoult of the thiller, 
an—" 

'' What became of Phelim?" 

" Oh, the next thing the b'y remimbers at all, is 
that he found himself in the lee scuppers — he couldn't 
exac'ly tell how 'twas he kem there, but the sate of his 
trowsis was lame for a mont aftherwards. All hands 



130 CORRECTED PROOFS. 

set to bodtherin Phelim, an a stout b'y like him wouldn't 
Stan that you see. The blood of the O'Donahoes, I'm 
that blood meself, by my modther's side. — " 

" Oh, blast your mother !" 

" Its too bad that, Benjie — if it was a man had said 
that sam.e, I'd raise a mousin over his eye 'ud be a beau- 
ty spot for a twalmont." 

" I didn't mean so, Dennis — your mother is the best 
woman in the four divisions of Ireland, no doubt." 

*' Och hone ! Och hone ! It's dead she is, but she 
was all that an more too. Well, if you didn't mane it, 
you didn't, an no more said. Phelim's blood was up, 
an he gev it to them betther than they sint ; a nice gift 
of spache he had, an no wondther, seein he was an 
O'Donahoe, and they have always been remarkable for 
spaches — " 

** Dying speeches?" 

" To be sure — dyin or livin, livin or dead. What 
are ye laughin at, Benjie?" 

" It would be a hanging matter to tell, Dennis." 

" Kape it to yourself, thin. Phelim kicked up such 
a hullabaloo on the forekassel wid his red rag, that the 
captin kem forrud an tould him to be aisy. Wid that 
Phelim up an shook his two fists so near the captin's 
face that they stirred his whiskers — and thin they fell 
upon Phelim, the gang o' them, and put a pair of lace 
ruffles on his wrists, an stowed him away in the cable 
tier, betwane decks. He laid there four days, and thin 
the skipper knocked off his wristers, an tould hiin to go 
on deck an be quiet — an so he did. Well, that night, 
the skipper tould him he was a good-for-nothing booby, 
an sis he, * I'll horrse ye, ye dirthy block'id, an worrk 
ye up.' Thin Phelim begun to show a bit o' the blood 



TAR BRUSH SKETCHES. 131 

iv anO'Donahoe agen, but the skipper sings out, ' stew- 
ard, my irons !' and Phelim's Irish fell in a minnit. 

* Now Phelim,' sis the skipper, sis he, ' I minded an Irish 
pinnant on the wedther clue of the maintopsil, jist you 
go up an bring it down, will ye V It was darrk an — " 

" How could the skipper see a rope-yarn aloft, in the 
dark?" 

" Are you a fool intirely, Ben? Couldn't the skipper 
have sane it forenint the night kem ? An barrin that, 
could'nt he see the eye iv a murphy, on the ryal thruck, 
in the night, if he wanted to sind a b'y up to cut it out, 
to worrk him ? Well, Phelim crawled up the riggin, an 
it's careful he was to stick to it like a barnacle to a foul 
bottom. Divil a bit did he know where to look for the 
clue iv the topsil, in a darrk night ; he'd a paped intil 
the captin's chist for it, soon as any way. He got to the 
futtock shrouds an there he stopped — till the skippers's 
mout opened agen, wid all sorts iv hard names for him. 
' Oh murdther, Phelim O'Donahoe,' sis he to himself — " 

" Who heard him ?" 

*' ' Oh murdther, where'll I findthe pinnant, wid Erin 
go Bragh, an a beautiful harp on it? Its not in this 
dirthy ship at all.' Jist then he felt a warrm breath at 
his ear, an a v'ice said — ' go on the yard, Phelim, my 
son.' Wid that it was afeard he was. Ja ! — Jasus he 
mint to holler, but a hand wid a glove to it stopped his 
mout, an it's hot that hand was, through the glove, an a 
nasty smell wid it, that took Phelim's breath away. 

* Get out on the yard, you lubberly baste,' sis the skip- 
per. * An go on, my son,' sis the v'ice agin. ' O murd- 
ther,' sis Phelim, ' I can't holler, any way, for I'm struck 
spacheless — an I can't go out on that big ugly stick, for 
if I'd fall and dhrown, how would they wake Phelim 



133 CORRECTED PROOFS. 

O'Donahoe ? ' Wid that he was lifted bodily, an divil 
a sowl could he see all the while, but his arrm felt like 
it had a hot sthring round it. The v'ice tould him 
where to find the clue iv the topsil, an out he crawled, 
bekase iv the fear he was in. ' An now,' sis Phelim, 
' I'd like that pinnant they tould about.' The v'ice 
told him it was the ropeyarn. ' Have ye found the pin- 
nant?' sis the skipper. The blood o' the O'Donahoes 
was up, an Phelim was makin up his mout to call the 
skipper a dirthy blackguard, for callin a sthray rope- 
yarn an Irish pinnant, whin the v'ice answers, ' Ay, ay, 
sirr !' ' Am I spakin or not?' sis Phelim to himself, for 
the v'ice sounded so much like his own beauthiful tongue, 
that he couldn't be sure. ' Come dov/n wid yerself, 
thin,' sis the skipper, an 'ay, ay, sirr !' sis the v'ice 
again. * Ah, well,' thought Phelim, ' Father Murrphy 
tould me iv the wondhers iv the dape, and this must be 
one o' those same ; but whedther I sid ay or not. Til 
be kapin my word, an go down.' Wid that he gets in, 
but whin he got to the bunt, what should he see but 
somebody settin there on his heels, wid a coil o' rope 
undher him, an a long black coat. ' It's a hurry ye're in,' 
sis black coat. ' Divil a word o' lie in that,' sis Phelim. 
' Oh, but there is, though,' sis black coat. An sure 
enough there was, for Phelim found himself in no hurry 
at all, by rason that his legs wouldn't move undher him. 
' Now, Phelim,' sis the v'ice, for that an the black 
coat was the same, ' ye tould the skipper a big lie ye 
did, whin ye passed yerself for a sayman wid Modther 
McGraw's jacket on. Ye're mine intirely, for its no 
absouloution ye'U get, anno priest widin a tousan mile o' 
ye.' Thin Phelim thried to say his prayers, but not an 
are 'ud come to him ; he'd left his bades in pawn wid 



TAR BRUSH SKETCHES. 133 

Modther McGraw, for a drap. whiskey, the wicked 
sowl. * Come down !' sis the skipper. * Ay, ay, sirr,' 
sis the v'ice agin. ' Will ye lit me spake at all ?' sis 
Phelim, * To me, as much as ye plaze,' sis the v'ice. 

* I'll not do that thing,' sis Phelim, ' As ye plaze,' sis 
black coat ; ' I'll wait as long as you ;' an wid that he 
dhrew a pipe from his pouch, sthruck fire wid his 
knuckles, and wint to smokin. By an by, sis he, ' it's 
not your skin I'd like to be in, Phelim O'Donahoe ^ 
the skipper will bate you into m.outfuls for a midge, ^ 

* Let me go, thin,' sis Phelim ; an the skipper hollered 
agin. Phelim thried to say, ' I can't,' but the words 
kem out of his mout, ' ay, ay, sir, direc'ly.' Thin the 
black coat coughed, an sid, ' bad luck to ye, Phelim, 
for makin me laugh ; I got the smoke in my troat. Jis 
don't bodther yerrself an me too; I'll have ye any way, 
— will ye go wid me or no?' Wid that Phelim tought 
no, but it was yes whin it kem out iv his mout, an the 
ould un laughed agen. * Now Phelirii, I'll tell ye, ye 
shall go for this wunst, but I'll call for ye a year from 
this night — it's eight bells that's jist sthruck, an ye'll 
■want to kape yer watch below sure — for it's that watch 
ye like bist. At eight bells a year hence, ye'll be 
ready?' Phelim sis 'yis,' for divil anodther word could 
he spake, an the ould un got up — an wid the coil iv 
rope that Phelim saw, he took tree turns round his 
body. 'You'll lave that ?' sis Phelim. 'If ye'll want 
it,' sis the divil. Wid that he tossed him the ind, but 
Phelim dhropped it like a hot praty. 'Now,' sis the 
divil, ' I'll know you in a tousan ; it's my mark you've 
got on yer fingers.' " 

" But didn't he make a sailor of him ?" 

" To be sure ; 'ud the ould un have Phelim no sailor, 
12 



134 CORRECTED PROOFS. 

vvid his mark on him ? Wid a very dacent bew, he bid 
Phelim good avenin, an put his pipe in his pouch. 

* Stop,' sis Phelim, for he was a very perlite body, 
seein, like meself he was an O'Donahoe, ' stop,' sis he, 

* you'll burrn yer pocket !' ' Oh,' sis the ould un, ' I 
don't mind thrifles,' an thin he was missin. Phelim 
kem down and the skipper had his mout made up for a 
jaw wid him — but instid, sis he, — ' get out, Phelim 
O'Donahoe, for a scabby blackguard ; if it's brimstone 
you rub yerself wid, kape away from me.' The next 
day Phelim took hoult like an ould hand — " 

"Better than his master, I suppose." 

" Altogedther. The divil can't be a complate sailor, 
by rason he daren't look aloft, but Phelim — " 

"Got along nicely of course. Did the devil call for him?" 

" To be sure — whin did the divil, or any odther cred- 
ithor miss pay-day '? Phelim bate all hands in sayman- 
ship for the year, and whin the time was nigh up, he 
stood at the helium. Pie had turned the last glass, an 
all at wunst he let the vessel knock about like a crazy 
one. ' The divil is in her !' sis the skipper. ' Sure 
enough,' sis Phelim, an gev a big groan. ' It's at yer 
ould thricks ye are,' sis the skipper. ' I can't help 
that, sirr,' sis Phelim. ' Well thin, the divil fly away 
wid you, for a big booby as ye are,' sis the skipper. 
' Oh, murdther ! mardther 1 don't wish that,' sis Phe- 
lim, ' for it's jist the thing I'm afeard iv.' Jist thin 
there was a clattherin undther the top ; the divil was 
shakin himself for a fly away wid Phelim — it was out 
that the sand was jist, an wid his pipe in his mout, the 
divil rested his elbows on his knees, an his chin on his 
hands, an waited for the minnit. ' Look there !' sis 
Phelim ; an whin the skipper looked he saw the divil' s 



TAR BRUSH SKETCHES. 135 

two burnin eyes, glaring at Phelim, like big balls of 
fire, * Murdther ! murdther ! the glass is almost out 
intirely !' ' An thin what !' sis the skipper. ' The 
divil will fly away with Phelim O'Donahoe !' ' Is that 
the bargain ? thin he don't fly wid you at all !' — an thin 
the skipper jerrked the glass out o' the binnacle, an 
broke it in two paces, an he gev one half a toss due 
Nort, an the odther Sout, — an sis he to the ould un, 
' oh, you big black blackguard, off* wid you ! to h-11 wid 
you ! ' " 

" Don't swear, Dennis." 

" Well I won't, but that's what the skipper said. 
He tould him to go home agen — an where's the harrm 
in that? He gave a big howl, an flew away direc'ly, 
wid his pipe out intirely." 

''Is that all, Dennis!" 

" Every word — barrin that the backstays on bote 
sides were sthranded where his wings sthruck, an Phe- 
lim had a job iv the saymanship the divil larnt him, to 
mend his mischief afther him ; an the paint on the top 
was smoked wid a nasty yeller, like the way Callao 
paints ship for us." 



IN BOSTON HARBOR. 

" We'll not get up the night, Ben, for I heard the 
pilot tell the captin he'd come to an anchor." 

" I know it — too bad, ain't it, Dennis ? " 

" Kape cool, Benjamin darlint — yer modther'll do as 
well widout ye one night more, as she's done the twal- 
mont an over." 

" Yes, to be sure, but — " 

The bustle of coming to, handing sails, &/C. cut ofl" 
our conversation. We lay at anchor, in sight of Boston, 



136 CORRECTED PROOFS. 

and, by a little stretch of fancy, almost within hearing 
of the buzz and din of the city. It is the very dullest 
and most anxious hour of absence from home^ the last 
one before communicating with friends on shore. All 
the hopes which have buoyed up the mind during 
the passage, become, particularly when tantalized as 
we were, " hopes deferred," and indeed " make the 
heart sick." One dreams of friends and happiness at 
home with a relish, and hugs the phantoms to his heart, 
while he knows the next hour cannot bring a *' change 
o'er the spirit of his dream," and substitute unwelcome 
intelligence for happy anticipation. But when he is 
aware that a few hours, at the extent, will bring to him 
the substance of the shadows which have hung around,, 
and almost conversed with him — or blight his dreams, 
with the information that one or more, perchance the 
dearest of his visions, are but visions of the departed— 
the possibility of the latter event is a bar to all happi- 
ness in contemplation of the immediate future. He is 
miserable — feverish with anxiety — hope an instant lulls 
— nay, excites him — and anon, he thrusts her smiling 
promises aside, contemning them as but aggravating 
and illusive precursors of the grief which awaits him. 
Who knows what friends have gone down to the grave, 
or with what countenance living friends will receive 
him 1 Who can anticipate the character of the wel- 
come ? Will it be warm 1 cold ? or no welcome at all ? 
Is she, the ' dearest, still the aifectionate, confiding, or 
has she — 

" ' Oh, whack 1 Judy O'Flanagan ! ' " 

Bah 1 Why, Mr Benjamin Fiferail, that is a pretty 
exclamation, after such an affecting strain as you played, 
us. I verily began to look for my pocket-handkerchief-. 



TAR BRUSH SKETCHES. 137 

I know it, my dear reader, (you are a lady, for a 
dozen,) but it's just the exclamation Dermis uttered, as 
he clapped me on the shoulder, and I could forgive it 
easier than the blow. I was leaning over the rail, so- 
liloquizing ''just that way," when his fist came down 
upon me, like a blow from a pile-driver. 

" What do you mean ? " 

" To scatther the blue divils, jist. Divil a bit nearer 
ye'll get to the shore, for stannin an countin the staples." 

We adjourned to the forecastle. 

"Well," said Bill, "I'm glad we're 'ome agen." 

*' No you ain't to home, by a darned sight," said ojar 
Greenhorn, a regular-built Yankee. A year's salt-water 
washing had not eradicated the marks of his origin, 
— but the bits of salt which adhered to him only made 
his Yankee peculiarities stand out in better relief " No 
you ain't to home, by a darned sight. I guess there's 
as much odds as difference between our city of Boston, 
and your tarnal smoky towns of London and Liverpool." 

" Oh, shut yer mout, bote iv yez, an no lip about 
counthries, at all. London an Liverpool, an Boston, 
bote iv 'em, isn't to be mentioned in the same day wid 
our beauthiful Dublin." 

" Talkin about cities, guess you never icas up where 
I come from. Sich a place — grow in town — don't see 
one like it in every day's ride, by as much as tew chalks." 

" Some bit iv a bog, wid a matin-house on the edge 
iv it — murdther! vvhat a name for a church ! " 

" Get aout ! America is like Ireland I don't think. 

Tell you what 'tis, Dennis, we don't have no bogs here — 

they are all mill-privileges — miles of gals — fine as silk 

— speculation — hurra-a ! Let Aminadab Sawyer show 

12* 



138 CORRECTED PROOFS. 

his face in that neighborhood, an if he don't cut a 
swathe, I calk'late 'taint many fellers that can. " 
" What'll ye be afther doin in the bush ? " 
" Dewin? Why^ fust go off, on goes my claw-ham- 
mer jacket — " 

" Hould on, Amminy, what's that? " 
" My long-taile J I lue. 

" Oh, yer coat — it's too salt for me you are, altoged- 
ther. Well ? " 

'' ' Mister Pimento,' ses I, ' jest put the tacklin on 
that old critter o' yourn.' An then, ses I, ' C-e-e-iup 
yer long tail ! or you'll git a taste o' the long-tailed oats, 
I'm thinkin.' " 

•' Long boats ? That's the corn Cobbet told 'em 'ow 
to plant." 

"Cobbett? Is he British?" 
'' Yes." 

"Don know him. Guess he never was up our way, 
cause I never hearn tell of a man o' that name gittin a 
lickin there." 

" Getting a whippin \ I don't see 'ow that proves 
hany think." 

" You don't ! Well, jest look here a brace of shakes. 
As Squire Jones used to say, the case lays in a nut-shell. 
If Cobbin, or any other tarnal foreign Englishman, was 
to undertake to show aour folks how to plant their corn, 
I reckon they wouldn't call a meetin to take the sense 
o' the town, afore they gin him an almighty thrashin. 
So, seein nobody o' that name has been licked, I take 
it that nobody never undertook to teach nobody how to 
plant their corn." 

" Oh, your hignorance excuses you." 

" Hignorance ! Well, now look here, Bill British. If 



TAR BRUSH SKETCHES. 139 

you'd a ever seen Noah Webster's Dictionary, you 
wouldn't a called ignorance, hignorance. Oh, git aout ! ' 

"Hignorant, or hignorant, it's hall the same hany 
way, an it's just what spells your name." 

" Now none o' your darned insinivations — right here 
under the guns of Fort Independence, tew! If I was 
President Jackson, I'd make a law that there shouldn't 
no more Englishmen come over. Ignorant 1 Why, 'od 
rot an darn ye to darnation, look here ! " 

Here Aminadab Sawyer twiched up the cover of his 
chest, dove under his clothes and " curiosities," hauled 
out a tin box, opened it with the triumphant air of an 
advocate who has discovered a poser for his antagonist, 
and handed it to Bill. 

" There! " said he, poking his finger at it, as if he 
feared it would bite, " jest you take partic'lar notice of 
what's on that piece of paper, an then say I'm ignorant 
if you think it's wholesome. Right side up, if you 
please. Why, can't you read without spellin it aout? " 

" I don't see what I'm to do with your protection." 

" Protection ! Well, if Parson Monotonous, and 
Squire Jones, and Reuben Pimento, Abijah Speedwell, 
Rehoboth Hunt, and Jeroboam Hough, Selackmen of 
the town of Cedarville, wouldn't a haw-haw-ed to hear 
that, I miss my guess. Protection ! why, you darned 
etarnal fool, that's my character ! " 

*' Ho, ay, from your last place of sarvice." 

'* Sarvice ! a free-born American citizen of these 
United States go to sarvice ! — it's enough to make a 
minister swear, an I ivill swear — damn it ! " 

" Take care, boy — take care — don't damn me." 

" I didn't — I didn't — I damned it — don't you know 
grammar ? " 



140 CORRECTED PROOFS. 

" Oh, jist stop yer blather," said Dennis, interposing, 
" hould yer brawlin, an be paceable, jist at home, as 
we are. Rade that paper, Aminydab, an thin tell us 
about Sayderville." 

" Yes ; ' Mr Pimento,' ses I, ' put yertacklin on the 
lioss— ' " 

'' Botheration, b'y, don't be tuckin away that paper. 
If indade an indade you are not ignorant, as Bill here 
sis, let's know it. It's meself that have doubts — you 
must rade the paper, wedther or no." 

" Why, a feller don't really like altogether, to read a 
paper out loud, that ses right out, pint blank, that he's 
ony one notch below the master," stammered Amina- 
dab, with a sort of a do-coax-me-to look. Dennis un- 
derstood it. 

" Niver mind, thin, Aminydab, we'll not hurt yer 
falins that way — lave alone radin it, an tell us what ye'll 
do at home." 

But Aminadab, with his voice pitched an octave above 

his usual tone, had already commenced with a nasal 

twang, and without regard to such trifles as punctuation 

and inflections of the voice, he sang through the follow- 

*ing certificate : — 

" This is to certify, that Aminadab Sawyer is a lad of good 
moral walk and conversation, and has deported himself in such 
wise, by attention to his studies, as to merit the approbation of his 
instructor. Dilworth Accidence." 

"I certify, that to the best of my knowledge and belief, the 
above is the character of IMr Sawyer. 

Saved-by-grace Monotonous, 
Minister of the Gospel.^' 
" We conquer in the above. 

Reuben Pimento, ^ « 7 * 
A ,,. o Selectmen 

Abijah Speedwell, I ~ 

Rehoboth Hunt, ( ri ^ -n >> 
i^„ TT Cedar ville.^ 

Jeroboam Hough, J 



TAR BRUSH SKETCHES, 141 

*' Whereas, the respectable gentlemen whose names are above 
signed and affixed, have seen fit to give the young man, Aniina- 
dab Sawyer, their endorsement and approval, I have no hesitation 
in affixing my own : Provided always, that my signature, so signed, 
affixed and appended, shall not be construed into any warranty 
for reparation of any mischief, damage, or breach of trust, which 
he, the said Aminudab, may commit after the date of these pres- 
ents, or which he may have committed prior hereto. 

Artemas Jones, 
Counsellor and Attorney at Law.^' 
*' Cedarville, December 1st, 18 — ." 

'' What d'ye think o' that for a recommend — guess 
it'll carry me a'most any where, hey?" 

" It strikes me that Squire Jones is rather apocryphal." 

" Guess he is, faith — rather goes ahead of the minis- 
ter in most things — sich a recommend as his'n isn't to 
be had every day. Worth a trifle to me, isn't it ?" 

'' You'll take it in your pocket, and apply for a mate's 
berth next voyage, won't you, Aminadab? " 

" Shouldn't wonder if I did — don't tell every body 
what I mean to dew. One voyage is enough to learn a 
feller like me seamanship — know the craft all fore an 
aft. Wouldn't give a feller a certificate on that pint, 
would ye Mister Fiferail 1 " 

*' I think you had better ask the captain." 

'* You don't ! Why, do you know he's a leetle mite too 
much stuck up for my money ? Feels his oats- — ama- 
zin'ly." 

"As how?" 

" Had a cegar one night, real Spanish, not half 
smoked. Six bells, second mate sung out, ' hold the 
reel !' — run aft — " 

"Smoking?" 

'' Sartin — wa'n't a goin to throw away a cegar't I 
paid a cent for. Says the captain, says he, * throw that 



142 CORRECTED PROOFS. 

nasty thing overboard.' An so I did — couldn't disobey 
orders, you know. But that wa'n't all. Says he, ' ef 
ever you come aft smokin agin, I'll smoke you.' Then 
agin, t'other mornin, stood at the helium — old man 
come up, peeped all round at the weather, — ' pleasant 
day, captain,' says I. 'Who told you to speak?' says 
he. Oh no, Mister Fiferail, couldn't think o' askin hi?n 
for a recommend." 

'^ Who told you to Mister me to-night ? Never heard 
you do it before?" 

" Didn't ? Well, I allers thought I did." 

" An so, me darlint, you mane to come Paddy over 
him, do ye? Hould on a bit, an I'll give ye a carac- 
ther ; an if Ben here'll put it on the paper, it'll be the 
makin iv ye." 

" 'Greed." 

" In the first place, say his protection is iv no use till 
him at all, by rason there's no disputin he's a regular 
Yankee." 

" Good, stop a minit. I say, t/ou Bill British, can't 
we trade ? — sell the protection out an out for fifty cents, 
an take an order on the cap'n. Good as new — never 
used it — cost me more, a darned sight, considerin time 
an all. What next ?" 

" Say he's like a grane dhry stick, cut ofTiv the bush 
an dhried wid the barrk on, so he's not so grane as he 
looks, an a dale betther man than his modther." 

" Oh git aout ! You're makin a fool of a feller." 

'' Divil a bit, my b'y wid a hard name, the Lord has 
isaved us that throuble. Say he's always first on the 
topsil yarrd, an sticks to the bunt like a sailor ; ari 
that he's a capithal hand a-boarrd' — " 

'* That's the thing !" 



TAR BRUSH SKETCHES. 143 

" To kape bread from mouldin." 

" I'll be darned if I stand that; it's no. kind of a 
recommend at all." 

" Well, thin, it's the bist we can do for ye ; an seein 
you don't like it, you must do as Benjie tould ye — go 
to the skipper." 

" 'Spose you think Tm 'fraid tew. Aint by a long 
ways. I'm as good as he, an my father was as good a 
man as his'n. Free country — guess I aint beholden 
to him." 

" Bravo ! ye're a lad of spirit, to be sure, but don't let 
it be all talk. I'd like to see you in yer own town, I 
would, cuttin a swell an astonishin yer rnodther. But 
ye niver was to say afore ?" 

"No." 

" I tought as much, an I shouldn't think you'd been 
at all, if I didn't know it — don't get mad, it's only 
bekase it sits aisy on you. Will ye know how to carry 
sail whin ye get ashore?" 

" Guess I shall." 

" Oh, but you won't though. Harrk while we tell 
ye." 

" You must clap a patch o' tar on your helbows and 
on your trowsers." 

*' Thrue, that's better nor a recommind. Whin you 
see yer modther, you must say — ' damn it, my ould un, 
how d'ye wedther it V " 

" Yes, and if a breeze comes up, sing hout, ' ello, 
hold lady, hunreeve your bed-cords, and let's send down 
the chimblies.' " 

" An harkee, don't forget what I'll tell ye, now. 
Remimber, no thrue sailor will slape widout the roar 
iv the ocean is in his ears — " 



144 CORRfiCTED PROOFS. 

" Gorry, but they hain't got no sign of an ocean up to 
Cedarville." 

** Niver mind, put yer modther out doors wid a quart 
pot an a bucket iv wather, an tell her to trow it on the 
windy." 

''Now look here, you tuke me for a nateral fool — ^jist 
git your land-tacks aboard — " 

" That's it," and Dennis lent him a slap on the back 
as he spoke ; " that's it, me darlin — you spake like 
somebody now — " 

" Well, you needn't pound a feller to death — aint a 
chokin. You come up to Cedarville, and I'll show you 
the lay of the land, I guess." 

*' Bravo ! again. We'll do that thing, I and Ben 
Fiferail." 

" All hands ! up anchor, ahoy !" 



LAND TACKS ABOARD. 

" Now, Benjie, lay us alongside o' that shop door, 
han'somely." 

'' Whoa !" 

" Misther Amini — Am — spake it, Benjie — divil burrn 
me if I can." 

'' Do you know a Mr Aminadab Saywer in this 
town ?" 

'' Why, do you want to see him ?" 

" Now what 'ud he ask the question for if he didn't ? 
Why don't ye say yes or no, an done wid it ?" 

*' 'Cause I thought if he did want to see him, might 
find him up to Squire Jones's, where he's gone to fix 
his bucket rope." 

** No, he aint there, Mr Pimento," said another ; 
" told me he'd done the bucket-rope, an was gwine up 



TAR BRUSH SKETCHES. 145 

to the meetin'us to overhaul the bell-rope, as he calls it. 
Says 'taint safe." 

" Oh it isn't ! " said Dennis, giving me a punch ; 
" did he tell the razon ?" 

" Yes — said it might carry away the sax'n if 'twant 
looked arter, an he wonders 'tasn't afore now." 

Dennis threw himself back and his open mouth 
paralleled the chaise top — a front view of the mouth 
inside the chaise would have suggested, to a man with 
large comparison, the idea of a nest of measures. The 
horse started at the sudden jerk of the shafts, but when 
a loud and indescribable laugh issued from the open 
portal of Dennis's head, the poor beast was astonished 
— he pricked one ear, then the other, then found his 
legs — and the way he dashed down Main Street, 
Cedarville, was a " caution to parents " — at least so 
said the next Cedarville Universal Advertiser. 

The gang about the store, and the people who started 
out on either side of the road, made all sorts of noises, 
charitably intended to stop the horse, no doubt, but 
serving the usual purpose of frightening him, and doub- 
ling his speed. The reins we had lost, as they lay 
lightly over the dasher at the time of starting, and went 
overboard before I could clutch them. On he went — 

" Faster and faster went. 
Faster and faster — " 

till, just as I was about laying out on his back to get 
him by the head, his speed slackened, and his pace be- 
gan to resemble that of a — wheelharroio folloiving a 
man — two legs before and but one rest behind — or a 
dog lame of one hind leg — a step and a hop. At length 
he stopped short, and all of his body abaft the fore 
shoulders began to reel starboard and larboard, short 
13 



146 CORRECTED PROOFS. 

and quick, like a boat in the short sea in the wake of a 
steamboat's wheels. I never saw a horse cut such 
qualms before, and never hope to again. 

" Oh, d — n the baste ! " said Dennis ; a purty dance 
he's led us, to be sure ; but he's tired of pigin wings, 
an now he's takin the rockin step!" Here Dennis 
knelt down in the bottom of the chaise, and peeped 
over the dasher. " Oh murdther, Ben, it's no wond- 
ther he stopped ; his hawse is foul — there's two turns 
and a half hitch round his legs wid the reins." 

At this moment Aminadab Sawyer ran up, and un- 
dertook to seize our horse by the bitts. Bucephalus 
shook his head, threw up his heels — sent a piece of the 
dasher flying into the air, taking Dennis's face as it as- 
cended — and then down we went, Dennis O'Dogherty, 
Benjamin Fiferail, horse, chaise and all, in a heap, as 
the devil found six pence. 

The crowd who gathered about us soon raised the 
horse — Dennis and I picked ourselves up ; and the 
wreck inspected, two shafts and the dasher carried 
away, I had time to look after my shipmate, who stood 
at a short distance, his head down, and operating upon 
both eyes at once, with his, hands. " My God !" cried 
I, as I looked up in his face, " how much are you hurt ? 
Your face is all blood and dirt ; are your teeth knocked 
down your throat ?" 

" My eye ! my eye !" 

" If his eye is injured," said the village doctor, bust- 
ling up, " immediate and skilful treatment is neces- 
sary — a — " 

" Got the boss made fast," said Aminadab; "guess 
you'd better walk right into aour house." 



TAR BRUSH SKETCHES. 147 

And accordingly the doctor and I walked Dennis 
into Mrs Sawyer's best room, set him in a chair in the 
middle of it, and kept out all but twenty of the crowd, 
which number were admitted to assist. At each of the 
open windows were three tiers of heads, piled one above 
another, gaping with open mouths at Dennis, as he sat 
with both hands up as at first ; or responding in low 
groans, and such cheering prophecies as *' he'll never 
see again !" or '' he won't live through it !" to the poor 
devil's constant exclamation, " Och, murdther ! my 
eye ! my eye !" 

The doctor opened his case of instruments, and 
spread them upon the table. '' Mrs Sawyer, a bowl of 
water. Injuries to the eye (here he raised himself, 
and assumed a declamatory attitude,) should only be 
approached by regular physicians. (An awful squint at a 
Thomsonian, whose head hung in at the window.) Now 
some linen, for compresses and bandages, if you please, 
Mrs Sawyer. If the Cornea should be so injured, 
( ' hear ! hear !' from several, and ' how does he know 
it's the corner?' from the steam doctor,) if the Cornea 
should be injured, and the Vitrous Humor have es- 
caped — " 

" Och, murdther ! my eye ! my eye !" 

"Don't be frightened, my friend; — if the Vitrous 
Humor have escaped, the sight is gone, and the Chrys- 
talline Lens will have dropped so as to appear only half 
visible above the lower lid, or at one corner. (Wipes 
his probe, and examines the eye of the instrument.) 
In that case, there will be tremendous pain in the optic 
nerve, extending back to the brain ; — does your head 
ache? My good woman, why don't you prepare the 
compresses?" 



148 CORRECTED PROOFS. 

" Want a compass 1 — got one here to my watch- 
chain," said Aminadab. i 

" No, no. (Lays down probe and takes up scalpel.) 
It may be a mere injury of the lid, and it will only be 
necessary to remove a bit of the flesh, (wipes and lays 
down scalpel and takes up forceps,) or possibly a splin- 
ter may have entered the flesh, or possibly the Cornea, 
or—" 

" My eye ! my eye !" 

" We will first treat it with aqua pur a, — have you it 
here, good woman?" 

" No, but I'll send 'Minadab right to the 'pothecaries, 
if you'll set it down." 

" Send him to the pump — oh, here it is, all ready. 
( ' Gorry,' said the Steamite, * why didn't the consumed 
fool say water, an done with it?') Now takedown 
your hands, Mr — eh — " 

'' O'Dogherty," said I. 

" Mr O'Dogherty. Take away your hands." 

" Och, murdther ! the way I'm in !" 

Dennis had kept his hands tight to his eyes during 
the whole scene, and the strength of two or three of 
us was necessary to removg them. We held his arms 
out by main strength, the spectators breathing audibly 
the while, and the Steamite, unable longer to keep him- 
self at a distance, jumped in at the window, and took 
the bowl of water out of Mrs Sawyer's hands. 

The doctor wiped the face just under the eyes, which 
Dennis kept closed so tight that his head trembled. 
Then he waited to see if there was a flow from them, 
just as I had seen Dennis himself wipe a quart pot sus^ 
pected of leaking. There was no fresh flovv^ not even 



TAR BRUSH SKETCHES. 149 

of tears. The doctor looked disappointed, but the dis- 
ciple of Thomson smiled maliciously. 

" Go over the whole face wid yer swab," said Den- 
nis ; and I thought I began to see something like a 
smile in his face. 

The washing away of the dust, now caked on, re- 
vealed two slight bruises, one on the nether jaw, the 
other on the bridge of the nose, " Bad case, I guess, 
doctor," said Steamite. The doctor looked more aw- 
fully important. 

*' It may be an internal injury ; regular practition- 
ers never are in haste to pronounce a patient out of 
danger." 

" Guess they ain't, faith !" said Steamite. There 
was the same watching the corners of the mouth that 
the eyes had undergone. The doctor scratched his 
head. 

" Is my face clane now?" said Dennis. 

" Yes ; and if you'll open your eyes, and let us see — " 

" Oh, they've done smartin, an I'll do that thing — " 
and he disengaged his hands, sprung to his feet, placed 
his arms akimbo, and leered into the two doctors' faces. 
*' Ain't I a good lookin felly, any way ?" 

" Eh-em !" said Steamy, " none but regular-bred 
physicians should approach such delicate operations — 
so I'm off." The women gazed in astonishment that 
Dennis's eyeballs did not fall out, and he improved the 
opportunity thus afforded, to take an accurate survey 
of all their faces. The doctor disappeared, and the 
only intelligence direct or indirect (he did not send his 
bill,) that I ever had of him afterward, was from see- 
ing the village watch-maker straightening the probe 
which was bent by being packed in a hurry. 
13* 



150 CORRECTED PROOFS. 

The recovery of Dennis's eye-sight was no sooner 
announced, and the guard taken from the door, than 
there was a rush into the room from the outside. 
''Where's the sailor feller I" "Is his eyes good?" 
" Where's Dr Bolus?" "Why, I take it," said the 
Steamite, " Dr Bolus is 7ion est inventus as the mineral 
doctors say — he'll be scarce hereabouts for a while, I 
reckon." Here he led off, in a horse laugh at the dis- 
comfiture of his rival, and all present joined in the cho- 
rus. Dennis tried in vain to make his escape — a little 
embarrassed, at first, in being thus lionized in spite of 
himself Soon recovering, he mounted a chair, and 
made demonstrations of an intention to speak. 

" Stan' back, men," said he; " aisy if you plaze — 
jist gev us fair play. Now, what'll ye be afther, ship- 
mates ? Is it because ye niver saw a man before ? Oh, 
shame on yez now — 'ud ye have a felly kilt first, and 
smodthered to death aftherward ?" 

But, like Haydn's undertaking to play a congrega- 
tion out of church, the more Dennis begged them to 
be off, the more and more they crowded up to him — 
and the crowd increased rather than diminished, as the 
news was on the fly, that a sailor had both eyes kicked 
out by a horse, and was lying at the point of death at 
Mrs Sawyer's, attended by three doctors and two min- 
isters. The broken chaise at the door arrested all who 
had by any chance not heard the news, and in they 
turned to Mother Sawyer's — all charitably bent on ren- 
dering the assistance usual in such cases of bruises or 
wounds — viz. finishing the sufferer, by shutting off all 
air from him. It began to be uncomfortable. 

" Benjie," said Dennis, in a whisper, (I stood at his 
elbow,) " how'll I scatther 'em? We'll be screwed here 



TAR BRUSH SKETCHES. 151 

direc'ly, like a bale iv cottlion. Ah ! I have it. Misther 
Sawyer ! (aloud) Misther Sawyer ! If ye' re near the 
door, jist stip down cellar, an clap a shore undher the 
deck. Be aisy jontlcmin, ilie ftoor woiiH fall this tree 
minnits — clap up two shores, Misther Sawyer ! Don't 
hodther ycrselvcs bein in a hurry now — Misther Sawyer, 
pass the word along for the docthor an his loblolly b'ys 
— donH he jlusthered noic, jontlemin — there'll be broken 
bones here direc'ly — don't he frightened, men, don't he 
goin off in a huff ! stop, an I'll tell ye all" about my 
ivouns an bruises! Oh, but it's no use — divil a one'll 
stop now I coax 'em to, but whin 1 tould 'em to be off, 
they were for stayin a wake. Och, but I'm tired." 

" How are your eyes, Dennis?" 

'' Nicely, Benjamin ; it's a bit dust was in 'em." 

" Why the deuce didn't you say so ? " 

" Bekase I tought I'd let the blundherin fcol iv a 
docthor operate." Here Aminadab entered. 

'' Well, shipmates, got the rack o' your craft inter 
dock." 

"Ye have, have ye? — well, Aminy, jist tell us how 
the sax'n is." 

" Well enough,! guess, why — aintgot a job for him?" 

"I'll tell ye, me darlin. Whin Benjie here asked for 
ye at the store, they tould him you said the bell-rope 
'ad carried away the sax'n, an — " 

" Darned fools ! I didn't — ony said the bell-rope might 
git carried away, if 'twan't overhauled. Say, mother, 
ha'n't got no cold grub in the locker, have ye ? " 

"Any what?" 

" Any grub in the closet ? " 

" Do you mean to insult me, right afore strangers? 



152 CORRECTED PROOFS. 

Closets swept three times a day, and washed out once 
a week ! 'Taint likely there's grubs in 'em — " 

" Oh don't get into a puncheon, mother — guess a 
flour-barrel would hold you — " 

" Grubs in my closet I " 

" Ony want somethin to eat — " 

" Well, ef you want to eat grubs, better go where 
you can find 'em — aint none here, I promus you." And 
out of the room she bounced. 

While the old lady was getting over her pet in the 
kitchen, there was a tap at the door, and a gentle- 
man, inquiring for Mr O'Dogherty, was shown into the 
room. " Mr O'Dogherty ? " 

*' Barrin the handle, O'Dogherty is my name — Den- 
nis O'Dogherty." 

The visiter took a piece of paper from his hat, looked 
in Dennis's face, then at the paper, then at my friend's 
arms, and again at the paper. " Beg your pardon, sir> 
you can't be Mr O'Dogherty, — a — " 

" Is it my name ye'd swear me out iv ? " 

" Why, your eyes are both there ! " 

" To be sure." 

" Are none of your limbs broken." 

" Divil a one, to me knowledge." 

" Are you sure that you are not internally injured ? " 

" I can't swear to that, as I hav'n't turned meself 
inside out." 

" And you are perfectly well, then ? " 

" Divil a word o' lie in that — but what' 1 1 be makin 
ye look so sorry about it ? Oho, my dear, I smoke it — 
ye're the healt officer, an 'ud like to know wedther to 
sind us to quarantine or not — I'll show ye I'm sound 
direc'ly.'* 



TAR BRUSH SKETCHES. 153 

I threw myself on a chair in an agony of laughter, 
while Dennis fell to practising some of the strangest 
gymnastics I ever witnessed. He beat his sides with 
both hands, jumped from the floor to a chair, and back 
again, and twisted himself into all manner of shapes. 
" An now," said he, " will ye gev me a clane bill iv 
healt? What are ye laughin at, Ben?" 

" What have you been kicking about in this style for, 
Dennis?" 

" I niver was quarantined but once, an that was in 
the ship Mentor, and the docthor made me knock about 
jist that way." 

"But he's no doctor — there's no quarantine here, 
fifty miles in the bush ! " 

" Is it true that Ben sis?" 

" Oh yes sir, that is, I'm no doctor." 

" Well thin, bad luck to yer imperdence, for quizzin 
me that way — who are ye at all ? " 

"I'm editor — " 

"Edithur?" 

" Yes, of the Cedarville Universal Advertiser, and 
hearing of your accident, was anxious to obtain a cor- 
rect account, for, as has been well remarked, a lie will 
travel leagues, sir, while truth is putting on his boots, 
and I always like to be careful not to abuse the public 
mind — publish a large weekly impression, and daily in- 
creasing — " 

" What does all this mane ? " 

" He's a printer, Dennis, — prints a newspaper." 

" Well, thin, he's a right, no doubt, to ivery^ body's 
business. Jist say in your next paper, that I'm kilt 
entirely. Now be off wid yerself " 



154 CORRECTED PROOFS. 

During all this conversation there had been a con- 
stant passing under the windows. " Never," as the editor 
would say, " within the memory of the oldest inhabitant" 
had the excitement been paralleled, of which Widow 
Sawyer's house was now the focus. I noticed one man 
who passed and repassed fourteen times, looking into 
the window, each way. At length Mrs Sawyer called 
us into the kitchen, where she had provided, better than 
the " cold grub " Aminadab bespoke. 

" Tried to coax the old lady to make some lob-skous," 
said Aminadab, " but she wouldn't, nor tech to. Don't 
know whether you can eat this, or not." 

" Wait a bit, Aminy, an afther supper, we'll tell ye." 
A tap at the door. The conversation was audible 
where we sat. 

" Won't want a watcher to night, 3Hss Sawyer ? I 
heerd the sailor man was out of his head, an took three 
men to hold him." 

Dennis's lower jaw fell. 
" Oh no, Mr Hough, he's quite well." 
" Got a lewcid interval, hey ? He'll be tearin mad, 
when he comes tew." 

" Will he, by J s ! Thin it's yer own d d 

imperdint tongue he'll tear out! " 

Jeroboam Hough, Selectman of Cedarville, did not 
wait to see how Dennis looked in a passion. " W^hat 
kind of a bloody plaish is this at all ? " said Dennis, as 
he came back from the door. " First they're for pick- 
in out a felly's eyes, thin for puttin him in the paper, 
thin for puttin him in the mad-'us ! Oh, to the divil 
I pitch Sayderville, an all that belongs till it ! " 

'' Be calm, Dennis, be calm. The doctor was moved 
by kindness for you — " 



TAR BRUSH SKETCHES. 155 

"So is the ould aigle, that picks out yer eyes for her 
young, Benjie." 

" Then the newspaper-man hasn't had a chance for 
a paragraph before, for a year, and—" 

" Oh, yes he has," interrupted Aminadab. " Guess 
Mr Pimento's barn burnin down last night '11 give him 
a chance for a pretty middlin long story. They do say 
'twas sot a-fire." 

*' A jintleman, the felly that did it. I like that, but 
it's betther it 'ud plazed me, if it 'ad burned down the 
whole parish — a divil's den as it is. We'll look to that 
barn afther supper, Benjie, an return thanks over it." 

Mother Sawyer rolled up her eyes in astonishment. 
The " tea-things were not cleared away " before all the 
male and female gossips in Cedarville were in posses- 
sion of Dennis's table-talk, with notes explanatory and 
additional. 

* * * * # * 

" This here court stands 'journed over to the vestry 
of the meetin'us." 

" To what time, your honor?" 

" Oh, right away — havn't room enough here, an all 
my blanks says to my dwellin house, so I ony sot here 
to adjourn." Dennis and myself were walked to the 
vestry, in charge of one constable, two or three specials, 
and the posse, and placed in the elder's seats, which, 
for the time, were made the bar. We had been called 
up at daylight, and arrested, the same officer serving 
subpoenas on Mrs Sawyer and her son. Jeroboam 
Hough, who, in addition to being a slackman, wrote 
himself " Gustus Pease,'' read the complaint, setting 
forth that " Benjamin Fiferail and Dennis O'Dogherty, 
mariners, did, on the night of the 20th instant, against 



156 CORRECTED PROOFS. 

the peace of God and the Commonwealth, wantonly, 
maliciously and with evil intent, with fire and combus- 
tibles, set fire to, and cause to burn, the barn known as 
Mr Reuben Pimento's, to the great danger of the good 
people of the commonwealth, and against the statute in 
such cases made and provided ;" or other words to that 
amount, which I do not pretend to remember accurately. 

" Now, prisoners, hold up your right hands — you 
severally and solemnly — " 

" May it please the honorable Court, I believe it isn't 
usual to swear the defendants," said Squire Jones, half 
rising. 

" I ha'n't examined the 'thorities, but I thought in a 
case like this — " 

" It is contrary to all usage, sir, and — " 

'* The Court won't submit to be ruled by its attor- 
nies — " 

" I was not aware, sir, that petty Justices — " 

*' I'll commit you, sir, for contempt !" 

Jones looked up a moment astonished — then a smile 
took possession of his features, such a smile as Pygma- 
lion might have sported, if Pandora had proved a fool 
instead of the bewitching creature she turned out — 
or, to come down into plain English, he looked as a 
master shipwright might, who should, upon launching 
his craft, perceive she had a heel. The Justice's 
commission was obtained for him, by and through 
Jones's exertions and influence, and there was no little 
shame mingled with the anger he felt, at the stupidity 
of the magistrate of his own creation. 

The justice decided to waive the ceremony of swear- 
ing us, and proceeded, after swearing, to examine the 
witnesses, the first two or three of whom testified with 



TAR BRUSH SKETCHES. 157 

much hesitation and solemnity, that the prisoners came 
into town in a chaise the, day before ! Mother Sawyer 
followed their testimony with a relation of Dennis's 
conversation at the table, with some original additions, 
and the whole was wound up with the damning evi- 
dence, that we certainly were on or about the spot, on 
the night after the fire. Dennis and I could hardly 
keep our countenances during the farce — he indeed 
did not, or his tongue either, but continually interrupted 
the proceedings with such exclamations as — " a tund- 
herin lie !" " Is it fools ye all are ?" '' Oh, murdther !" 
— but we declined putting any questions to the wit- 
nesses. At the conclusion of the testimony, Mr Jones 
inquired, in an under-tone, of Dennis, " can't you prove 
an alibi?" 

*'To be sure I can prove it a lie, ivery word iv it!" 

" But can't you show where you was on the night of 
the fire?" 

" Faith an I can, the very house, if any body wiL 
go there wid me." 

" No, no ! you don't understand — can't you bring 
witnesses here to prove you were not in Cedarville ?" 

" Benjie, here a bit," — and he whispered. 

** No, no ! " said I ; " don't bring her here. There's 
no need of it." 

** Harkee — is it a lawyer ye are?" 

**Yes." 

**Divil a friend have I but that — an as far as that 
goes, wid his brodther, if ye like the family — " 

'* And that," said I, following suit with another rag. 

** May it please the honorable Court," said Jones, 
thrusting his hand in his vest pocket as he jumped up — 

"Are you for the Commonwealth or the criminals?" 
14 



158 CORRECTED VROOFS. 

'' I am for the defendants, sir — " 

" Well, didn't know how you was gwine to jump." 

" The law, sir, calls no man a criminal till his guilt 
is proved ; and I am confident, sir, of the innocence 
of m.y clients, sir," and away he went, thrashing the 
witnesses like mad, ripping up their evidence, and 
poking sundry dry thrusts at the justice. Our battery 
had touched his pocket nerve. But it all availed noth- 
ing — Justice Hough placed his fore-finger on his nose — 
" guilt wa'n't proved, nor innocence nyther — responsi- 
bility of a magistrate — higher court — recognisance — " 

" So you bind them over, do you ?" 

''Yes— eh— " 

" You a Justice ? — a d — d stupid fool!" And Jones 
slapped his volume of Reports down on the table with 
a will that added a report to the volume of documents, 
more like that of a six-pounder, than a " Commonwealth 
vs. ." 

" Yes, in the several sums — " 

"Will your honoj^ suspend proceedings a moment? " 

An animated sotto voce conversation between the sprig 
of law and the withered branch of justice, was followed 
by the annunciation from the bench, that, no sufficient 
proof having been found against us, we were discharged 
without bail ! Knowing, from circumstances, the relative 
position of magistrate and attorney, this sudden turn did 
not surprise me at all — and the villagers, good honest 
souls, only thought that the attorney had made the case 
clearer to his honor. 

" Is it all through now?" 

" Yes." 

" An Benjie, is the vahecle at the door ? " 

^'Yes." 



TAR BRUSH SKETCHES. 159 

" We are innoshent, you say? " 

" Oh yes, sartinly." 

"Well, I wish I could say as much for yerself — ye 
bloody ould Turk, an way farm tief an highwayman ! 
Ar'n't ye ashamed o' yerself, to bodther a dacint man 
this way ? May the sharks get yer dirty body, an the 
divil yer sowl ! — that's my blessin. Good afthernooii, 
Misther Sawyer, an if I throuble yer town agen, cut 
me up for junk, an lay me up in tumb-line. I'll stay 
at home, an get dhrunk wid Bill British first." 

Paying for the repairs of our chaise, we rode off — 
leaving the lawyer and justice in a consultation, whetii- 
er Dennis could be arrested for contempt of court, in 
insulting the magistrate after the court had adjourned, 
and whether, in case of the illegality of that measure, 
an action for assault could not be made to lie. 



160 CORRECTED PROOFS. 



A LAMENT. 

RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED TO THE WRITERS AWI> 
READERS OF " SONNETS," "LINES," ETC. 

I. 

In memory enshrined 

Paulina, still thou art ; 
For thee, a nameless fluttering 

Bedevils my poor heart — 
At the mention of thy name, 

I think I'm with thee still. 
Till the monster, cold Reality 

Throws o'er my dreams a chill. 

IL 

Alas ! that there should be 

Such a cruel thing as space ! 
And twice alas ! that it should find 

' Twixt you and me a place, 
A continent in length. 

And as the sea profound ! 
E'en as the waters of that sea. 

My tears for thee abound 1 

III. 

Alas ! that Father Time 

Is always in such haste — 
He would not wait for you and me. 

But like the devil raced ! 
Says he, "the time has come 

Pauline and you must part ! " 
Says I, "we must ! " and oh ! it went 

111 nigh to break my heart 1 



A LAMENT. 161 

IV. 

In ancient Lima, where 

The River Rimac flows ; 
Where the turkey-buzzard lives on what 

PAUL.INE to the gutter throws ; 
Where the palace and the church 

Are glittering in gold — 
My heart's ador-ed kept a bar, 

And agua diente sold. 

V. 

The compound that I taught 

Her fairy hands to make. 
From any other hands than hers 

Alas ! I cannot take ! 
No ! punch no more for me ! 

Ah rather let me freeze. 
Than warm with glass for which her hands 

Did not the lemons squeeze ! 

VI. 

I've come to the intent. 

In agony of soul, 
Forthwith to let the Temp'rance folks 

My name as theirs enrol. » 

Spirit of sweet Pauline, 

As thou dost o'er me hover. 
Be witness that no punch but thine, 

Is tasted by thy lover. 



14* 



16$i CORRECTED PROOFS. 



DIRECTIONS 

TO ENABLE A MAN TO PRACTISE MEDICINE 
SUCCESS FULL Y . 

A. FAIR understanding of the end to be gained by a di- 
rection, is always to be attained before it is followed. 
To an unenlightened man, one upon whom no corner 
of the mantle of Hygeia has fallen, the object of this 
essay may seem, at first sight, obvious enough — '' to 
teach the successful practice of medicine." But the 
candidate for the honors of the lancet and gallipot, 
should learn that successful practice, as applied to the 
doctor and to the patient, has two widely different ac- 
ceptations. With the patient, it means successful de- 
liverance from such portion of the " ills which flesh is 
heir to," as may afflict him — with the doctor, it means 
a successful removal of the deposites, from the purse 
of the unfortunate v/ight w^hose lot it is to be bled by 
him, to his own pocket. With the patient we have not 
to do, but, consigning him to the students of our school, 
with a hope that he is blessed with a constitution fit to 
repel the effects of all the contents of Pandora's box — 
to the would-be doctor we address our self. 

If you have been unfortunate enough to get an ac- 
quaintance with the classics, or as much as a smattering 
of Latin, conceal it. Abjure all knowledge of such 
heathenish palaver, and do not, as you value your pros- 
pect of success, presume to utter a word of it. You 
might as well talk treason, or preach heresy, as quote 



DIRECTIONS, ETC. 163 

Latin. It is a vile language, fit only for book-doctors 
jand mineral prescribers. 

Contrive in some way to shock the good sense of the 
regular faculty, and get denounced as a quack. Such 
disapproval is a sure passport to fame. If you can make 
it appear that you are persecuted, sick people will call 
upon you from sympathy. 

Never be tender about interfering with another phy- 
sician's practice. Nobody observes such matters of 
punctilio but the regular faculty, from v/hom you must 
be as dissimilar as possible. Use no minerals — or, if 
you should, swear that all the articles in your 3Iatcria 
Bled — tut ! we are breaking our own rule — all your 
doctor^s stt/ffs, we mean, are herbs, notwithstanding. 
When you are called in to another's patient, condemn 
his practice, at all events. If you should find a pre- 
scription in the room, roll up your eyes, and wonder, 
aloud, that what the patient has already taken of such 
p'ison; has not killed him !^ If it should be " Syrup 
Scillge," swear it is a mineral, throw it out at the 
window, and administer a dose of Squills. So in other 
cases. 

Profess " Natural Knowledge " of medicine. You 
will thus gain, on the part of your victims, the reputa- 
tion of having taken the art the natural way, and as an 
epidemic thus taicen is more virulent than when given 
by vaccination, you will be deemed the more skilful 
physician. If the faculty denounce you as a natural^ 
so much the better. 

If you ride, drive as if fleeing the gallows. If you 
walk, stride over the ground, like Peter Schemil in hia 
seven league boots. " Haste makes waste " of nothing 
but your patients' health and dollars. 



164 CORRECTED PROOFS. 

Never cite medical books as authority. If you wish 
to appeal to precedent, or to electrify a nurse with your 
wisdom, relate cases in your previous practice. You 
may do this the first week. 

Advertise largely. This answers a double purpose. 
To the printer it is hush-money, preventing an exposure 
of your quackery. The gullible part of the public swal- 
low your advertisements even easier than your medicines 
— the former cost them nothing. 

If a patient should happen to survive your treatment, 
get a certificate of a cure from him, with leave to use 
it. If poor, charge him nothing, if wealthy, be very 
reasonable. You will not often be called upon to exhibit 
such generosity, and the estates of those who unfortu- 
nately die under your hands, will make you amends. 
Dead men dispute no charges. 

Lay all deaths at the door of the mineral doctors. 
This you can generally do with safety, as most of your 
calls will be to give the coup dc grace to those who dis- 
miss a regular practitioner to call you in. If you have 
charge of the patient from the beginning, to the end 
which will usually follow your practice, give out that 
his blood was as full of minerals as a geologist's cabinet, 
when you first saw him. Say that his death is the effect 
of medicine administered in former fits of illness. 

If your advertisements, certificates, etc. make a large 
bill, persuade the printer he is sick, as he will be, un- 
doubtedly, before you have done with him, and induce 
him to take his pay in nostrums. 

Don't forget to caress children — " children govern 
mothers, and mothers fathers." Carry your pockets 
full of confectionary, and make every mother's booby 
son and daughter your favorites. 



MY friend's story. 165 



MY FRIEND'S STORY. 

A FRIEND of mine, a foreigner, one of the better order 
of Refugees, who fled to this country to avoid political 
persecution, has often entertained me with accounts of 
his hair-breadth escapes. Political persecution in his 
case was no joke — no reform out of office, or loss of 
patronage on account of political opinions. A price 
was set on his head, a reward offered for him as a traitor. 
After foiling his pursuers for many months, seeking 
concealment in the dens and holes of the earth, he was 
fortunate enough to get on board an American vessel. 
While there concealed, he had the inexpressible grati- 
fication of looking from his hiding place upon the 
movements of a file of soldiers who had traced him. 
He saw them pass their swords under the bed-clothing 
in the berths, into all visible cracks and openings — in a 
word, into every possible hiding-place, except that in 
which he happened to be ! Providentially, he escaped, 
and our business with him is after his arrival at New 
York — a part of his life, the history of which has less of 
thrilling interest, than that of fleeing before files of sol- 
diers — but his suffering v/as perhaps quite as intense in 
New York, as on the Island of Cuba. A hereditary 
gentleman^ he Avas unused to labor — of handsome prop- 
erty, he had, indeed, been educated to consider occu- 
pation with a view to the acquisition of money, beneath 
him ; and, of high and honorable feelings, the petty 
tricks and expedients of those who live by their wits, 
he had the utmost disgust for — he was incapable of them. 



166 CORRECTED PROOFS. 

" When I arrived at New York," said he, "having 
no acquaintance with your language, except a slight 
smattering picked up on the passage, I let the porters 
and hackmen do with me as they pleased. I was sent 

to the Hotel, and following my baggage to my 

room, took out and sealed my letters — they were scaled 

to me, before ; — wrote " Hotel," under my name 

on the direction, and sent them to the post. My friends 
in Matanzas had assured me they contained all that 
was necessary, credit and introduction. I dined on the 
first day alone, not caring to sit down at the table with 
strangers. The dinner was well — the wine, its name 
to the contrary notwithstanding, never, I'll be sworn, 
never saw the " sunny realms of France." Dinner fin- 
ished, T examined my funds, and found myself the pos- 
sessor of ten Spanish dollars and five rials in cash ; but 
the empty state of my treasury gave me no uneasiness, 
as I had been assured by my friend that ample provision 
was made for me. On the morrow, in answer to my 
letters, I received two notes of invitation (I never heeded 
them) and a call from Mr R , an American gentle- 
man, whose kindness to me I shall never forget. He 
was a perfect master of my native language, and his 
two daughters, as I afterward found, were also well 
acquainted with it. 

" He spent an hour with me, listened to my history, 
expressed sincere commiseration for my misfortunes, 
and offered me his house. This, with many thanks, I 
declined. He then advised me to change my quarters 
to a private boarding-house, and offered me an immediate 
introduction to one. He rang for my bill, and after pay- 
ing it, I had remaining only three dollars, of my ten. 



INI y friend's story. 1 67 

*' At my new place I found a countryman, and though 
overjoyed at the opportunity of conversing, my pleasure 
was not a little dashed by the fact, that whoever had 
received my letter of credit had not yet notified me of 
his acceptance, and I began to fear a mistake, or a mis- 
carriage. Days passed — and I heard nothing, and was, 
beside, almost starved ! Not that there was deficiency 
in my landlady's provision — that was abundant — but 
the courses followed each other so rapidly, that I had 
bare time to taste them, and hardly that, as meal-times 
were almost my only opportunities of meeting my coun- 
tryman. The end of the dinner half-hour, it is an error 
to call it an hour, invariably found me alone at the table, 
hungry as when I sat down ; but compelled to leave it, 
or see it spirited away from before me, as the viands 
disappeared from beneath the nose of Sancho Panza. 

*' Weeks passed, and Winter approached — or what 
to me was Winter, the last bleak months of Autumn. 

Mr R continued his visits, the others to whom I had 

sent letters, seemed to think their duty done, when they 
had answered them. Perhaps my failure to return their 
calls, or answer their invitations, did exonerate them, 

according to the code of strict politeness. Mr R 

was above politeness. 

*' ' My dear P ,' said he one morning, ' you need 

a cloak.' 

'' ' Oh no, I can do very well without.' A fit of shiv- 
ering gave me the lie in my teeth, as I said it. 

" ' But you are unused to the climate, and when yoa 
go out, must positively be uncomfortable. Permit me 
to send my tailor to you ? ' 

" ' No sir — you are very kind, but must allow me 



168 CORRECTED PROOFS, 

to be master of my own wardrobe. I do not need any 
article of clothing at present.' 

" He looked at me astonished — he did not know that 
I had but a dollar and a half, cash, in the world. In 
the evening, my countryman and fellow boarder attacked 
me. ' Take a turn with me to-morrow, and make some 
purchases. I will be your interpreter.' I thanked him, 
but declined. ' Then let me send you a boot-maker.' 
' No.' (My shoes were undressed deer-skin, white.) 
' Let me at least send up the tailor's lad for orders — 
you need hose.' 'No.' (Mine were white silk.) He 
hesitated a few moments, as if he had something which 

he wished to say, but dared not. ' P , countrymen 

should not be strangers to each other in a strange land.' 
I understood him perfectly, but looked all innocent of 
comprehending his drift. ' If — if — if you have need, 
my purse is at your service.' I thanked him, but de- 
nied my need so haughtily, that he never renewed his 
tenders of service of that description. I felt mortified 
— m.ortified that I had been reduced to the necessity of 
prevarication, and upon so sore a subject. I saw, beside, 
that he did not half believe me. 

** My situation became daily more unpleasant, and 
many and ridiculous were the expedients to which I was 
reduced, to escape freezing. I wore three pairs of silk 
hose, one over another, and other warm climate habila- 
ments in like proportion. I shaved myself, trimmed my 
own hair, and stuck to my room — afraid to meet the 
landlady. The servant brought me my food, and I have 
since found that I was designated, from landlady to 
boot-black, as the crazy foreign gentleman. I was crazy. 
Where was the money to come from, to pay my board ? 
And why was not the bill presented ? I wrote to my 



MY friend's story. 169 

correspondent at Matanzas, complaining in no gentle 
terms of his neglect — put the residue of the ink on my 
shoes, buttoned my light coat up to my chin, and pre- 
pared to sally out and find conveyance for my letter. 
Some one knocked at the door. ' She has brought my 
bill ! ' said I, and screwed my face down to what it had 
never worn before — a begging expression. The door 

opened — it was Mr R . He took a bundle from a 

boy who followed, and dismissed him. 

" ' Good morning, Senor P . As your friend, and 

as the friend of the gentleman from whom you came 
recommended to me, I feel the interest of a father for 
you, and shall assume a father's authority. I insist upon 
your making use of the clothing I have here ojdered 
for you. If you do not^ I shall attribute your refusal to 
mean economy, a trait unusual in your countrymen. 
As you value my friendship, act.' 

''What could I do? Refuse without assigning a rea- 
son, and forfeit Mr R 's friendship ? Assign the 

true reason, and mortify my pride 1 Accept, and trust 
to Providence for an escape from the dilemma ? ' Where 
— is — the — bill?' I stammered. 

" ' Never mind the bill, till you return. I come to 
invite you to spend two or three weeks with my w ife and 
daughters in the country. I will not take no for an an- 
swer ; you have been hardly civil to them, and /Jiust go 
out. Come, prepare, my coach waits for you.' 

" In a few moments, I joined him at the door. As 
I passed down the hall,, I hid my face in the ample folds 
of my new cloak, expecting, at every step, that my land- 
lady would thrust her bill into my hand. The coach 
gained, I felt as if I had obtained a reprieve from exe- 
cution. How guilty a poor devil is, without a dollar in 
15 



170 CORRECTED PROOFS. 

the world ! I said I felt like a reprieved criminal. I 
felt much worse. He may hope for ultimate pardon — I 
was sure of ultimate punishment. Did I not deserve 

it ? I was deceiving my generous friend R . He 

was responsible for the goods he had ordered for me — 
a hundred and fifty dollars ; for my board, as much 
more — for he had introduced me, and I had not a dollar 
in the world ! I had half a mind to confess all, and 
throw myself upon his mercy, but he did not give me 
time. During the ride he talked incessantly, alternately 
chiding me for my despondency, and trying to reason 
me into spirits. The very means he took to relieve my 
depression increased it. I was affected to tears. 

" Arrived at his country-seat, I found his intelligent 
wife and accomplished daughters, all that he had prom- 
ised. I verily believe their stay at the country-seat was 
protracted solely for my comfort, as I had repeatedly, 
civilly, but positively declined calling at their house in 
town. For a time, they did beguile me of my unpleas- 
ant feelings — till they became acquainted and familiar. 
Their thoughtless rallying then caused me many a pang 
— many a sally intended for a joke was as bitter to me, 
as the stones to the frogs. I have forgiven the gypsies 
long since — but I can never forget them. At length, 
upon a day, I was completely cornered. Albert, their 
brother, came up from the city, and the girls arranged a 

ride. Mrs R and daughters were to take the coach 

— Albert and I were appointed outriders. ' But you 
forget,' said he, ' that the only horses here that are fit 
for the saddle, you take for the coach.' 

" ' And you forget, brother of ours, that you have 
declared, times without number, that you never would 
back one of mother's span of deacons. Nay, nay, you 



MY FRIENDS STORY. 171 

must provide your own steeds — you know you are a sad 
boor, and our friend shall teach you to ride.' 

" I had a glimpse of the plan from what I understood 
of the conversation, and one of the sisters explained it 

all to me. ' You, Senor P , fresh from the land of 

chivalry and romance, must make a cavalier of Albert.' 
I was thunderstruck — and ' looked it well ' too, I sup- 
pose, for she continued, ' What ! so blank ! sure never 
gallant knight before received token of a lady's favor 
so thanklessly.' 

" ' I should be happy indeed, to be of your party, but 
must go to the city upon business.' 

" ' Indeed, that is the first we have heard of it. But 
we will have the ride notwithstanding. We will go to- 
day.' 

" ' I am very sorry, very, but I must to New York to- 
day.' 

" ' Ah, you are worse than Albert — still, I will arrange 
it. Our ride shall be to the ferry, and when we return, 
we will send a servant for your horse.' 

" ' No, no, ladies, you must excuse me — ' 

'' ' 3Iust ! ' 

" ' Yes — I prefer — that is — T was directed — I must 
walk ! ' 

*' ' Must ivalk ! Well I do believe, Senor P , you 

are a strange man. Won't you ride if I will pay the 
shilling? Take the omnibus, if you are determined not 
to be gallant. Why, one would think you were a dys- 
peptic, or a Palmer from Holy Land, and under a vow 
to travel with scrip and staff, or a wandering beggar. 
Do shut your eyes, and let me give you Ponto for a guide, 
with a string to his neck.' 

*' I bolted from the house, reached the ferry in an in- 



172 CORRECTED PROOFS. 

credibly short space of time, paid my last rial to the 
boatman, and in a few moments was pacing Broadway. 
I trembled at every tailor's shop I passed, shrunk from 
every accidental touch, as if I expected and dreaded 
pursuit — and wandered still, irresolute where to turn. 
I feared to return to my boarding place, and dared not 
apply at a public house, because I imagined ' guilty of 
poverty' was stamped on my forehead. Accidentally, I 

encountered R . I strove to avoid him, but it was 

impossible. 

" ' Hey day ! what, i' the dumps again ? In the city 
— alone — on foot — and as wild a looking conspirator, as 
Cataline himself could have been. Why man, what ails 
you ? Are you afraid there is still a price on your head 
and a regiment in pursuit 1 ' 

" * Mr R , I cannot endure this. It pains me 

exceedingly.^ 

" ' Well, I beg pardon — you know I would not inten- 
tionally. Come, make me your confidant.' 

" ' I dare not — but you must know eventually — and 
— you will despise me.' 

" ' Nonsense I I don't believe a word of your self- 
accusation.' 

" ' Mr R ! ' said I, with a tremendous effort. 

" ' Senor P t ' answered he, with mock gravity. 

" ' I am indebted to my tailor, one hundred and fifty 
dollars — ' 

'"Well.' 

" * And to my landlady probably as much more — ' 

" ' Well—' 

" ' And you are accountable for both sums.' 

"'What! You mean to commit suicide, and wish 



QUID PRO QUO. 178 

me to be your executor. What shall I do with the 
balance? ' 

'''Balance?' 

" ' Ay, I hold your funds to thrice the amount of your 
debts, if you have well and truly rendered an account.' 

" * God bless you, sir ! ' I was delirious with pleas- 
ure, at this unexpected announcement of good fortune. 
* But why did you never tell me of this ? ' 

" ' Because I supposed you knew it of course.' 

" On the next day I rode with the Misses R .' 



auiD PRO auo. 

Oh, what's the use of Hving, such 

A selfish world among ? 
Yes, " What's the use ? " a question is 

I meet on every tongue. 
Utilitarian policy 

Is now-a-days the go ; 
Nobody thinks of doing aught. 

Without a quid pro quo. 

My cousin Jehu keeps a horse, 

And asks me oft to ride — 
But " What's the use ? " I have to treat. 

And pay the tolls beside ! 
It's very kind in him to ask. 

And very prudent, too — 
He Imows for every mile I ride, 

He gets a quid pro quo 
15* 



174 CORRECTED PROOFS. 

One can't afford to be polite. 

Civility's a bam — 
"What is the use " to feign it then, 

The shadow of a sham ? 
If one asks me to dine with him, 

I know that if I go, 
I must invite him home in turn — 

He wants a quid pro quo. 

I've burned my pocket Chesterfield, 

And cut Mrs Chapone — 
Arithmetic I'm studying, 

And quite an adept grown ; 
For "What's the use," when barter-trade 

Is all one needs to know. 
To talk of any thing, beside 

"Use," and the quid pro quo ? 

Prepare you, Mr Coroner, 

A verdict to produce — 
" This luckless vagrant di-ed of 

Excessive 'What's the use!'**. 
For "What's the use" of living in 

A world so full of wo ? 
I'll hang, and let the coroner 

Receive his quid pro quo. 



MODERx\ DEGENERACY, 175 



MODEPvN DEGENERACY. 

There are certain opinions either preserved in conver- 
sation, as proverbs, or perpetuated by scribblers, as fig- 
ures, which are completely at variance with truth — 
contradicted by experience — and at war with common 
sense. They are things said of course, concessions 
made for fashion's sake ; silently acquiesced in, against 
conviction, and iterated because they are received with- 
out contradiction, and may be made without any mentaJ 
exertion. Among the most prevalent, and, at the same 
time, the most ridiculous, is the idea which from time 
immemorial has been handed from generation to gener- 
ation, that mankind are daily degenerating from what 
they were in " good old times," and " in the days of our 
fathers." With the demise of each successive genera- 
tion which goes down to the grave, an undefined degree 
of virtue and worth becomes extinct, and the successors 
to the places of their fathers, inherit all their vices, and 
none of their virtues. Every good act, or evidence of 
a worthy trait in public or private character, is, if no- 
ticed at all, depreciated by a comparison with the virtues 
of an imaginary age of perfection, the precise date of 
which, nobody pretends to fix. If a public man afford 
an example of patriotism, or a private one of worth, the 
newspapers rejoice that there are yet left to man some 
public integrity and private worth. 

Let us rejoice that our lot is cast to-day, instead of 
some hundred years hence. It is of no use to wish we 
had flourished hundreds of years back, but it is highly 



176 CORRECTED PROOFS. 

proper to be grateful that we live in the age that we do, 
instead of having been reserved for a period when every 
attribute which raises men above brutes shall have be- 
come obsolete and unknown. 

At the fashionable rate of estimating the downward 
ratio of human worth, it will not require many centuries 
to bring about such a state of things. The process of 
deterioration is making the earth less and less worth 
one's while for an abiding-place, and we must most af- 
fectionately pity our successors. If the Pythagorean 
doctrine of transmigration were true, those, who like 
Shakspeare's Rosalind, animated the carcasses of Irish 
rats, in the time of Pythagoras, might inform us of the 
actual per centage of the depreciation since his day ; 
and we, the present generation, might watch posterity, 
in the shape of cats and dogs, and mewl our grief at 
their degeneracy, or growl our disapprobation at their 
departure from our virtues. But, fortunately for man- 
kind, no such continuity of earthly troubles is in keep- 
ing for us, since we cannot expect to move long upon 
earth, even in a dog's skin ; and as no one can recollect 
his previous metamorphoses, it is fair to conclude, Ros- 
alind to the contrary notwithstanding, that even the tes- 
timony of Irish rats is denied to the believers in the 
degeneracy of mankind. Upon whose testimony is the 
fact established 1 What reason has the present gener- 
ation to lament a falling off from ancient virtue ? At 
what time did all the desirable attributes of man take 
flight from earth, and leave it a moral wilderness? Was 
it with the " last of the Romans 1 " But the moral de- 
terioration of mankind is not all that is claimed by the 
croakers. If we may believe them, the arts and scien- 



MODERN DEGENERACY. 177 

ces flourished more luxuriantly, and were in better state 
in their infancy, than at the present day. 

A truce with nonsense. If ever man had a right to 
indulge in pride, that right is his at the present day. 
There have been in the history of the world, bright 
and dark ages immediately and alternately succeeding 
each other. There has been, and more than once, a 
time when the sage and virtuous could with reason weep 
the degeneracy of their cotemporaries. Science has 
beamed upon the earth, nations become great and glo- 
rious — and the besom of destruction wielded by the 
barbarian, or the seeds of corruption sown by the luxu- 
rious and vicious, have destroyed the fair work, and 
driven mankind back to barbarism. The teachings 
of inspired and uninspired moral reformers have been 
rendered of no avail, or prostituted to base and venal 
purposes by designing men, and what would have been 
blessings, if improved, have been perverted to curses. 
But a new day has opened upon earth. Virtue, moral- 
ity, science, have a powerful ally in the Press, and the 
written lamentations of ancient worthies in view of rev- 
olutions which no power could then avert, should not 
now be printed in application to present time, when no 
revolution for the worse can reasonably be anticipated. 
There may be temporary checks to the progress of 
improvement, but the march is still onward. Every 
successive step gained, is retained, and improvement is 
placed upon too firm a basis to be overturned, as of old. 
The registers of worth, the lessons of experience, the 
histories of states and the legacies of the sage, are not 
collected in two or three places, to be swept away by 
the will of a barbarian, or the occurrence of accident. 
Where a single written work once existed, printed copies 



178 CORRECTED PROOFS. 

innumerable are now extant of all that is worth preserv- 
ing. The knowledge which was once with difficulty 
attainable by the few, is now forced upon the many. 
People must learn, whether they will or not. 

The present century, hardly more than one fourth 
gone, has witnessed a revolution, comparatively silent, 
and entirely bloodless, more important in its results, and 
more wonderful in the means by which it is being con- 
summated, than ancient Rome, with all her boasts, ever 
witnessed. Roman virtue was the resistance of stern 
natures to the syren voice of luxury and vice, but was 
overcome at last. We have seen a great nation rise 
from indulgence in a fashionable and fascinating vice ; 
and public opinion has, " in our degenerate day," gained 
a victory over sensual indulgence, in the view of which 
Lycurgus might be astonished, and the eulogists of Ro- 
man virtue should be dumb. Ancient virtue, so much 
lauded, was resistance to vice in its^rs^ approach — mod- 
ern reformation is the deliverance from the last shackles 
of a vice sanctioned by fashion, winked at by moralists, 
and deemed impossible of suppression by all, except the 
most sanguine. Alluding to the change which has 
taken place in public opinion respecting indulgence in a 
luxury around which the poetry and mythology of the 
ancients, the habits and light literature of the moderns, 
and the inclination of all men for enjoyment has thrown 
a charm, we say, that the history of all time since the 
flood, cannot exhibit a more triumphant instance of 
national reformation than has been witnessed among 
tlie degenerate people of the nineteenth century. 

For the arts and sciences, it is hardly necessary to 
observe that the hut of the peasant of this century con- 
tains articles which would have been deemed luxuries 



BOOTS. 179 

in the ancient temples of the gods. The stupendous 
public works of the ancients are monuments alike of 
the folly and tyranny of their rulers. Were such piles 
useful or beneficial, modern science would erect them, 
and, without claiming any thing on the score of the 
miraculous, with facility and comparative rapidity, em- 
ploying one man where a hundred formerly labored. 



BOOTS. 



I LIKE handsome feet. That is almost the only reason 
I could never abide Dunlap's picture, " Venus attired 
by the Graces," after Guido. Her right foot is like a 
snow-shovel — and will bother the trio, when they get 
hold of it, although they have strapped the left into 
shape with her sandaL Her feet cannot be mates. 

The pedal props of the Chinese lady are as outre the 
other way. In a snow-drift she would travel like a man 
with wooden legs — in Saco, Bangor, or any of the clayey 
cities down East, her head-way, after a rain-storm, 
v/ould be like that of an ignis fatuus hunter in a bog. 

" The cobler should not go beyond his last." I should 
not wish to — so far, in disposition at least, am I cord- 
wainer. Not quite so devoted as those who kissed the 
great toe of His Holiness, and perfectly willing that part 
of the ceremony should be waived, I could worship hia 
feet, or the man for the sake of his feet, if they were in 
good and beautiful proportion, and need were that I 



180 CORRECTED PROOFS. 

worshipped at all. " Show me a man's companions," 
says the adage, " and I will tell you his character." 
Show me his boots. I like handsome boots hugely, and 
as a consequence, respect the artists who furnish, the 
taste of those who purchase, and the labor of those who 
make the polished leather mirror forth the gentlemanly 
character of the wearer. Day &l Martin, Knapp, Bell, 
Lewis, Fisher, and last though not least, by name eu- 
phoneous known. Gosling ! Living statues to your art 
are upon 'change, and upon the carpet, in the saloon, 
and in the hall. To the tones of music, the low-quar- 
tered pump, burnished to dazzling brightness, sliding 
down the dance, repeats enhanced, the brilliance of the 
many branched chandelier. In the street, the lustre of 
the sun is mocked by reflection, and his impudent rays 
are thrown back in his face, from that perfection of art 
— the boot. Don't say a word of the ancients. What 
were the art of embalming, and the pyramids of Egypt, 
the poetry of Homer and Virgil, the eloquence of Cicero 
and Demosthenes, the statuary and painting of the gar- 
den of Europe ? Monarchs in Tyrian purple, and blind 
beggar poets, orators, painters and sculptors, all icore 
sandals ! They deserve oblivion — and the labors of an- 
tiquaries and scholars, from endeavors to perpetuate 
their memories, should be turned to cunningly devising 
improvements in the economy of the art of gracefully 
encasing the human foot divine. 

I never knew but one man entirely after my heart in 
this matter, and he — but I will not anticipate my story. 

There was nothing particular in the cut or fit of his 
aoat. His hat was well enough — the Jehu fashion, his 
pants, so so, — all indicated a careless conformity with 
custom. But the white straps, over a brilliant black 



BOOTS. 181 

boot, were whiter by contrast. I felt that I would have 
given the world for an introduction, as we stood together 
before the wheel-house — he some four feet in front of 
me. As his body swayed to and fro, to keep its balance, 
there was an alternate fulness and flatness in either boot, 
as his weight came first upon one leg, then the other. 
The edges of the soles were as perfect in finish, as the 
nose of the Medician Venus — the heels, tapered down 
to the circumference of a levy, sat as true upon deck, 
as if they had been made vv^ith guage and square, for 
the very spot upon which he was standing. 

" Beautiful ! " I exclaimed. I could not help it. 

He took the Principe from his mouth, let the fourth 
column of smoke for the last five minutes escape, turned 
-half r'ound, and — cast an eye down to his boots. There 
certainly is such a thing as sympathy. According minds 
need no language to strike a common chord, and I felt 
more than acquainted. 

Still, I did not care to speak. There was too much 
in the awe-inspiring majesty of those boots to permit 
such familiarity, without a pretext. Fortunately the 
opportunity soon offered itself — his segar went out — I 
tendered him one from my own case, and the acceptance 
of it on his part was an acknowledgment of his c()nde- 
scending willingness to speak and be spoken to. We 
went through the usual laborious discussion upon the 
weather, the wind, the sea, the boat, — but I could not, 
by any easy turn, give the conversation the slant upon 
leather, that I wished it to take. I mustered all my 
impudence for a question categorical. 

" Excuse me, sir, for my apparently impertinent curi- 
osity, but — " 
16 



182 CORRECTED PROOFS. 

" Gemmen please-a move ? I want'er sr/eep-a fore- 
kissle." 

Confound that darkey ! The man of the boots rolled 
his full black orbs upon him, wheeled as leisurely as an 
elephant would go in stays, tossed the scarce lighted 
Yara over the side, arid walked leisurely aft. There was 

Pride in his port, defiance in his eye — 

And more than that in his boots. I could not follow. 
The ice, but a moment before broken, was refrozen. 

Presently, I sought him again. I had done hoping 
for an acquaintance, and longed but to bask at a distance 
in the brilliance of Day & Martin. Happy fellow ! He 
was seated on the promenade deck, his legs extended, 
one over the other, and crossed at the ancles. On either 
side of him were seated ladies — for a miracle, they were 
silent. Listening to him, perhaps? No, he was not 
talking. They were looking at his boots. An extin- 
guished cinder from the flue, fell upon his left foot — 
striking the instep just two inches and a half from his 
toe. He drew a grass-cloth kerchief from his right 
coat-pocket — I am positive it was grass-cloth — held the 
extreme corner of it between the thumb and finger of 
the right hand, and struck off the cinder with such an 
air ! Brummel, or Nash would have died of envy, had 
either been a witness of it. The elements are malicious 
to distinguished men — else had not fire driven Napoleon 
from Moscow in the midst of a Russian Winter — nor 
had Boreas played the traitor with him of the elegant 
boots. As he finished the cinder-reforming flourish, the 
delicate grass-cloth besom was rudely snatched from 
him by the wind ; but I had the happiness to intercept 
the fugitive, even after Davy Jones had made so sure of 



BOOTS. 183 

it, that his wife had opened the draw, to pack it with 
other miscellanies. As I handed it, hi^cknowledg- 
ments again opened a door for conversation. 

"My dear sir," said I, '' you would confer a great 
favor upon me, if you would tell me the maker of — " 

*' All those gentlemen what hav'n't paid their fare, 
will please walk up to the cap'n's office and settle it ! " 
" That's me ! " said Boots, and went down the com- 
panion-way. I now began to despair of ever finding an 
opportunity to pop the question. 

There was a noise on the main-deck, swearing and 
hearty anathemas. I knew the voice of the man of the 
elegant instep, and running down below, saw him stand- 
ing erect and motionless, while his lips moved, and as 
steady a torrent of imprecation rolled forth, as ever 
heretic was denounced withal. At his feet was a black 
servant, picking up the fragments of a soup-tureen, and 
upon his boots, his hitherto spotless boots, were clots of 
half-congealed grease. The captain essayed the mol- 
lification of his wrath — in vain. I tried, with no better 
success. He might have raved till this time, had it not 
been for one of those lovely beings " Nature made to 
temper man."' 

"My dear ," (I did not hear the name,) "put 

on your other pair." 

It would seem that, till then, he had forgotten them ; 
on the instant a smile passed over his features, as he 
ordered the luckless servant to bring his trunk upon the 
promenade-deck. " Provoking, wasn't it, sir ? " 

I was enchanted — he had really addressed me ! With 
all haste I pressed the advantage thus offered — expatia- 
ted upon the beauties of a well-cased foot — discussed 
the merits of various rival metropolitan boot-makers — 



184 CORRECTED PROOFS 



and ended, with the question, plump, '^ who furnishes 
you, sir : ^^ 

The arrival of the trunk upon deck cut off the answer. 
*' I have Jiere sir, a pair of boots — eleg'ant boots. Those 
I have on are quite an ordinary affair, but these, (taking 
a neatly folded package from the trunk,) these are beau- 
ties. I have worn them but once — it was when I rode 
with Miss F**** K*****— " 

" Miss F**** K***** ! " cried half a dozen ladies 
at once, as they crowded up at the mention of her name. 

" Exactly, ladies. She noted them, as I drew my 
charger up beside her palfrey, and said a London artist 
could not have turned out a better pair." 

"Indeed ! it will be the making of the maker." 

"Who is he?" I enquired for the third time. But 
he had stooped to lock his trunk, and did not hear me. 
He untied the packthread about the bundle — the ladies„ 
dear curious creatures, crowded round to see the boots 
which had been endorsed as beautiful, by the reigning 
toast. I was pushed back — and could just see the edge 
of envelope after envelope, as each was removed. In a 
moment more, the boots fell on deck, with a blow like 
an oak block, and the owner rushed by me, frantic. 

" Oh dear! " cried a lady. She fainted. 

" A man overboard!" The faint one was the first 
to scream, and the loudest. Who minds a fainting lady^ 
when a man is drowning? 

The wheels were backed, the boat was lowered, and 
I stepped into it. We pulled for the drowning man — 
he sank like a whale, flukes uppermost. I am ready 
to swear, by the marks on the soles, that his boots were 
V's, and of Spear's make. 



TO BE WELL BRED 



185 



The boots dropped on deck were — cowhides ! The 
hostler at the Hotel, Street, Boston, was ob- 
served to wear a remarkably handsome pair, upon the 
Sunday after the day that Mr , of the hand- 
some boots, took the steamboat for ; and the last 

order from that gentleman recollected by the bar-keeper, 
was a direction that his boots should be neatly polished, 
and packed in three newspapers. 

I have heard that a man answering the description of 

Mr has made his everlasting fortune down 

East, in the land speculation — but it can hardly be him, 
though he was a good swimmer — because the speculator 
is said to wear boots remarkably ungain. It would be 
monstrous to suppose that even death itself could make 
a man recreant to good taste in sole-leather, — much 
more that a narrow escape from drowning should wean 
him from his devotion to the tutelar saint of the cord- 
wainers. 



TO BE WELL BRED, 

Never be astonished, except at a prodigy of a child, 
who mistakes the letter X for a sawrhorse, and makes 
turkey-tracks on paper, for the alphabet. Fabricius, in 
pants, would be a model for a fine gentleman. He was 
not moved at first sight of an elephant — though draw- 
ing a screen revealed the monster, directly at his back. 
16* 



186 CORRECTED PROOF 



THE MOTHER TO HER, INFANT, 

UPON ITS BIRTH DAY. 



SUGGESTED BY AN OLD PAINTING, 



Little prattler, whither bent 
In thy thoughtless merriment ? 
Every object pleasure giving — 
In the luxury of living 
Thou'rt a very epicure. 

Bubbles bursting in thy reach 
Self-distrust nor caution teach ; 
Bent the phantoms to pursue, 
Still thou turn'st to objects new — 
Older children how unlike ! 

Disappointments wound thee not» 
Past in present is forgot — 
While thine elders, lacking yet 
Infant wisdom, will forget 
Pleasure in recalling pain. 

Springing from a source innate. 
Blisses pure upon thee wait — 
Pure and holy as the hymn v 
Of seraph and of cherubim : 
Thou art joy incarnate, child. 

Years give wisdom, infant dear ; 
Come — thou hast achieved a year- 
Look from out thy sparkling eyes 
Silly-sad, and worldly-wise : 
Mary, be a woman once ! 



TO AN INFANT. 187 

Sit upon thy mother's knee. 
While from dim futurity 
All a mother's sad delight — 
All a woman's second sight 
Visions bright and gloomy call. 

List thee to the hopes and feara, 
Joys and griefs of coming years — 
Fading pleasures — hopes deferred — 
Child, thou dost not hear a word ! 
Happy — careless of thy fate ! 

What ! art struggling to be gone ? 
Take thy way then, pretty one : 
Since the future cannot be 
Changed for good or ill by thee, 
Not to heed it thou art wise. 

If I could thy future lot 

Spread before thee, I would not ; 

No such shadow would I cast 

O'er life's Spring time : — while it last, 



188 CORRECTED PROOFS- 



WANDERINGS OF MR PETER 
PEREGRINATE 

IN SEARCH OF A BOARDING-HOUSE. 

" Shall I not take mine ease in mine inn?" — Fahtaff. 
Indeed yoa may, Mr Reader, if the attainment of 
such or any other resting place has cost you as much 
trouble as it has your most obedient servant, Peter 
Peregrinate, Scrivener by profession, and Esquire by 
courtesy. Commission me if you will to go in search 
of Capt. Back — to discover the exact location of 
Symmes's Hole — to trace on the map of the world the 
course of the Wandering Jew — to follow t]ie path of 
the late Lorenzo Dow — or to invent a machine capable 
of perpetual motion, — but, " an' you love me," deliver 
me from the necessity of undertaking an expedition to 
obtain a " boarding-house." 

The dove that father Noah despatched in search of 
dry land, could return to her old quarters when she 
could not elsewhere find '' rest for the sole of her foot." 
Not so the unlucky wight, who, without thought for the 
morrow, calls for his board bill " up to this evening," 
without having provided a place to lay his head, after 
leaving his present domicil. As the nun, upon taking 
the black veil, renounces all connexion with the world, 
and debars herself from return to it ; so the boarder, 
upon notifying his landlady of his intention to quit her 
premises, becomes undomesticated, and has no longer 
right to her five pound hen-feather down beds ; her black 



PETER PEREGRINATE. 189 

puddings and baked roast beef; her burnt steak, duly 
besprinkled with ashes ; her slate-colored coffee and 
distilled tea-kettle ; or her leaden loaves and nice strong 
butter. He is an outlaw and a vagrant in her house ; 
and having committed the unpardonable sin of tacitly 
disputing the excellence of her commons, it is an es- 
pecial favOr, grudgingly granted, if he be permitted to 
sleep again under her roof After leaving it, return is 
out of the question, unless, by mollifying her wrath by 
apology, he lay himself open to all the penance she 
may inflict for his error, and to endure all the insolence, 
which, as a conqueror, she has a right to put upon him. 

Full well was I sensible of all this, as, on the morn- 
ing after having " given my notice," I lay upon Mrs 
Cater's down bed, my eyes attentively fastened upon 
the ceiling of the room, just four feet two inches distant 
from my nasal promontory. " Behold," said I, men- 
tally, " the spiders above me ; they toil to be sure, and 
they spin, but even they, in all their trouble, are not 
afflicted like Peter Peregrinate, Esquire. If they wish 
to change their quarters, they need not give Mrs Cater 
notice, for she takes no notice of them. They have 
only to travel from place to place about her premises, 
and their only trouble is, in finding the best and most 
prominent situations pre-occupied by beings of their 
own species. They " 

**Mr Peter Peregrinate !" cried my landlady, in her 
agreeable silver tone, at my door ; ''Mr Peter Pere- 
grinate ! If you be gwine to get up to-day, I wisht 
you would ! Here's a gentleman what wants board is 
been waiting an hour, to look at this room !" 

I sprang from the bed, whose elasticity aided me in 
my leap as much as a mahogany plank would assist a 



190 CORRECTED PROOFS. 

voltiger in ground and lofty tumbling ; and, hurrying 
on my clothing, in ten minutes was discussing a bowl 
of cafe at Madame Coiffaird's. I did not care to stop 
at Mrs Cater's, and take vinegar in my slops, so in- 
dulged myself in the luxury of bona fide coffee, and a 
bit of rusk, at Madame's. While there, I received, 
accidentally, the agreeable intelligence, that, during 
the day following, I might expect my dearly beloved 
help-meet, with her dearly beloved trio of pledges, and 
her sister and niece. {Par'enthesis — My wife, God 
bless her, is very economical, and the thought of a 
hotel creates a spasmodic contraction of her purse- 
strings.) Here was a fix. A man without the appenda 
of wife and little ones, may run and eat, — he may 
breakfast at the Exchange, dine at the Tremont, sup 
at Fenno's, and sleep — in the tvatch-house, if he likes ; 
tut with a wife and the little Peregrinates, such pere- 
grination were out of the question. 

I have shinned during the last half hour of the last 
bank hour of the last day of grace, — I have run my- 
self to a shadow, like a tallow candle, at 100 deg. 
Fahrenheit, to be in time for the steamboat, — I have 
run away from a footpad, dodged a highwayman, bilked 
a Charlie, and swam for dear life, — but all the aflliction, 
the perspiration, the provocation and anxiety of all my 
other trials combined, never equalled in amount of suf- 
jfering, what I endured while looking for quarters for 

My sister, and my sister's child, 
My wife, and children three. 

I took up a daily, and thought myself the most fortu- 
nate man in the world, when I found an advertisement 
in which it was stated that " boarders could be accom- 
modated in a central situation." Fearful lest some one 



PETER PERSGRINATE. 191 

should slip in between me and my boarding-house, of 
which I had already in imagination taken possession, I 
hurried to "enquire of the printer." The accommo- 
dations were chambers in the lower part of Milk Street 
— a delightful situation for a residence, and quiet withal, 
as loads of Russia iron, rattling of trucks, squeaking 
of blocks and tackles, the yo-heave-ho of sailors, and 
the conversation of the " finest pisantry in the world" 
can make it. I need not tell the reader that I did not 
trouble the landlady to show me the premises. Other 
newspaper boarding-houses were equally eligible places. 
Some required the thread with which Theseus guided 
Ariadne out of the Cretan Labyrinth, to find them — 
others were too easily found, as they were in the noisiest 
thoroughfares in the city — some had no water, and others 
a cellar full — some had no air, and others an abundance 
of the worst air in the world. One obliging lady wished 
me to furnish her parlor, and pay the rent, allowing her 
the privilege of turning me out of it when her country- 
cousins visited her, i, e. four days in the week, exclusive 
of Sundays. One family served up brick-dust and bran, 
on the Graham principle, and another had eleven chil- 
dren, which, with the little Peregrinates, would have 
made an aggregate of three fourths of a score. 

" Oh Mrs Cater ! " I unconsciously exclaimed, " Oh 
Mrs Cater, would I had borne with you longer ! Your 
worst faults were virtues, and the miseries of your es- 
tablishment, tender mercies, in comparison with what 
I have this day seen in other places ! " At that m.oment 
" Rooms to Let," pasted in the window of a very neat 
house, caught my eye. To spring to the door was the 
work of an instant, to pull the bell the work of another. 
The parlor was spacious — neat ; the air of the cham- 



19^ CORRECTED PROOFS. 

bers was close, and I opened a window. " Whew-ew ! " 
I whistled, and abstracted my linen-cambric from my 
coat-pocket. " It's nothing but a soap and candle fac- 
tory," said my conductress. When I reached the street, 
I was in a perspiration. The lower rooms in another 
house were very well — the upper rooms, upper rooms 
indeed. I don't like to waste too much of my life upon 
staircases. 

At one place the doors were closed, and the' lights 
out at half past nine — at another it was never shut dur- 
ing the night, longer than fifteen minutes at a time. 
Fifteen night-keys, in the pockets of fifteen gentlemen- 
boarders, kept it on the swing from the going down, 
even unto the rising of the sun. But to discourse longer 
of my trials would weary the patience of the reader. 
If any doubt, let him try the rounds. To conclude, I 
have at length found excellent quarters, and having be- 
come domiciled again, no slight cause shall induce me 
to vacate them. 



TO AVOID BOMBAST. 

Never fancy a subject too lofty for language — and never 
have two styles of conversation, one for the eye, and 
another for the ear. Do not attempt to describe what 
you do not feel — and if you feel what you cannot des- 
cribe, say nothing about it. 



4# 
OLD KIT. 193 



OLD KIT AND HIS DAUGHTERS. 

There is no flesh in his obdurate heart. « 

This quotation, like most quotations, will not bear a 
literal application. I have no doubt that when Kit 
Meanwell dies, (Christopher Meanwell, Gentleman, is 
his title in legal instruments,) if a post mortem is had, 
there will be found a heart of flesh, but of the consist- 
ence and impenetrability of jerked beef. He does not 
intend to be cruel or unfeeling, and does not know that 
he can be reproached as such a person. Devoid of deli- 
cacy and sensibility, he makes no allowance for such 
weaknesses in the character of others, and the mere 
mention of them calls from him a damnatory expressio 
of doubt, and an anathema upon those who enter a plea 
so effeminate. He can understand a complaint of frozen 
ears or fingers, when he knows the thermometer ranges 
ten to fifteen degrees below zero — but laughs at the 
opinion sometimes expressed, that a cold demeanor to a 
dependant, or unfortunate, though it accompany a favor, 
freezes the current of gratitude in the bosom of the 
recipient. 

His wife, good woman, is a descendant of the Puri- 
tans, and so, indeed, is Kit himself Between every man 
and wife there is a difference, and that which particularly 
exists between Christopher and his help-meet, consists 
in this — that she, from her puritan progenitors, inherits 
all their pious horror of language garnished with pro- 
fane adjectives, and other parts of speech ; while the 
vernacular tongue of an unmentionable place, set to 
17 



180 CORRECTED PROOFS. 

music, and performed by a demoniac choir, with an 
appropriate orchestral accompaniment, would not affect 
or affright Kit a hair. Therefore, he will not in her 
presence abate one iota of his hot vocabulary, though 
she assures him that his profanity is a constant source 
of poignant grief to her. He does not believe her, be- 
cause he never felt pain of this description — and it would 
be as impossible to convince him she is in earnest, as 
to persuade the emperor of Japan, that, at certain seasons 
of the year, the waters of our New England rivers will 
support an elephant on their surface. He is not at all 
insensible to her corporeal suffering— never strikes her, 
or plants his boots upon her corns — intentionally. He 
has been known, like the hero of Sterne's " Good Warm 
Watchcoat," to travel the village in search of a styptic 
for his wife's bleeding finger, and return with his pockets 
full of cobwebs. He has been known to delay his break- 
fast three quarters of an hour, while the faculty were 
in consultation on the case of his wife, when she laid 
at death's door ; and he has also put up with cold din- 
ners three days in the week, when the attention of the 
factotum who officiated as " help," was divided between 
the kitchen and the sick-chamber. He waits upon his 
wife on all public occasions, which perhaps occur once 
in a couple of months, and she waits upon him, upon 
every other of the three hundred and sixty-five days in 
the year. 

Christopher has a couple of daughters — they are fair 
to look upon, but are sad vixens, each in her way. As 
in all families where the man and wife are two, the 
children are equally divided. Eliza, the romping junior 
sister, is her father's pet, and Helen, the mathematically 
precise and correct daughter, sides with her mother. 



OLD KIT. 195 

Helen torments her father so mnocently, uprightly, and 
in a way so perfectly irreproachable, that notwithstand- 
ing she has jaded the old man almost to death, the de- 
mures who are her friends and associates, mark her -as 
a pattern of a dutiful daughter, and denounce Old Kit, 
as a very unreasonable, undutiful father. Eliza is- the 
favorite of her father's friends, who admire her as a girl 
of spirit — a miracle of a girl — and they lament that 
such an one should be blessed with a mother unable to 
appreciate her transcendant excellencies. 

While the daughters were at home, it is no wonder 
that the family circle was in a state of civil war. Civil, 
literally, for they tormented each other in the best pos- 
sible humor. A shower of tears from the mother, sec- 
onded and assisted, if necessary, by an appeal to the 
same dernier ressort on the part of Helen, threw cold 
water on the hostilities. Kit and Eliza beat an honor- 
able retreat, and sunshine succeeded, till Helen and 
her mother attempted to take advantage of the result 
of the drawn battle. On the other hand, when Old Kit 
pealed out his small-shot irregularly and vehemently — 
after the manner of a company of militia, when their 
officer gives the command known only in American tac- 
tics, '' Load'n fire's fast's you can, till you've fired away 
all your catridges I " the wife and elder daughter left 
him the field. 

When one nation declares war against another, all 
the dependencies are included in the hostile proclama- 
tion. Although, in our friend's family, there was no 
formal declaration, actual hostilities existed — and went 
of course, against the dependencies of either party — the 
respective danglers of Helen and Eliza. Did a modestly 
disposed, sedate youth affect Helen's favor ? Eliza drove 



196 CORRECTED PROOFS. 

him off with some merciless joke, or by successive at- 
tacks of raillery and railing, her father aiding and abet- 
ting. Eliza's flames, on the other hand, were blown 
out by the cold prudery of the elder sister — sighed, sen- 
timentalized, moralized, and frozen to death. The 
mother, waiting as a corps de reserve, always effectually 
finished what Helen began, in the way of frustrating 
the hopes of the younger sister. Each carried on the 
war offensive, neither acting at all on the defensive, till 
it began to be apparent to all the young bachelors, that 
to make demonstrations at the hand of one of the sisters 
was to expose the adventurer to the fire of the other. 
Had there been an agreement between them to keep all 
male animals at a distance, it could not so effectually 
have answered the purpose. Either of the sisters was 
a prize worth taking — indeed, had other inducements 
been wanting, there were certain parchments in the old 
man's desk, duly recorded in the office of the Register 
of Deeds, which were altogether recommendatory. 

A new " shingle " was one morning nailed above a 

door in the village of A , and the name of Henry 

Capias, Attorney at Law, figured on it, in gilt letters. 
He brought letters to the magnates of the village, in- 
cluding Christopher Mean well, Esq. of course. Through 
the old, he became acquainted with the young, and in 
a few weeks after his arrival, no party was complete 
without Henry Capias. 

I was sitting with him one night in his office — we had 
just returned from Meanwell's house, which had been 
thrown open for the evening, to all the young people in 
town — being the third of a series of entertainments at 
that time customarily given by the hospitable dwellers 
in country towns. First in order came the old mai'ried 



OLD KIT . 



197 



couples, very old bachelors, widows, and spinsters of an 
uncertain age. Next, the young married, and on the 
third evening, the young unmarried. But this is a di- 
gression. 

*' Devilish fine girls, those Meanwells." 

" True." 

'' I will marry one of them." 

" You cannot, Capias." 

''Why?" 

I gave him the sketch that the reader has had — cir- 
cumstantially and particularly. 

*' But I will have one of them, nevertheless." 

"How?" 

" Time will show." 

''Which attempt first?" 

"Both!" 

****** 

A week afterwards, as the Meanwells sat at breakfast, 
there seemed no topic to quarrel upon. The cat sat 
demurely at the fireside, pricking first one ear, then the 
other. Poor Tabby ! she was astonished. A dozen 
years in the family service, had not witnessed so peace- 
able a breaking of the fast. Even Plague, Old Kit's 
terrier, who generally shattered the nerves of Mrs Mean- 
well and her eldest daughter, by a barking. accompani- 
ment to the three meals, was silently sitting on his hams. 

" I say," roared Old Kit, " he's a whining young 
hypocrite ! " 

" Who ? father," inquired Eliza. 

" That young Capias." 

"Why, father!" 

" Well, Mr Meanweil, / think him a boisterous young 
scapegrace," said Mrs Meanweil. 
17* 



198 



CORRECTED PROOFS 



''Why mother \ how can you?" cried Helen. 

Puss got up, and shaking her coat, ev idently relieved 
by the breach of silence, walked up to Mrs Meanwell, 
for her share of the crumbs. The dog's eyes sparkled, 
he sprang to his feet, and opened his noisy throat, for 
his pension from Old Kit. 

*' That noisy dog, Mr Meanwell ! " 

" That nasty cat, Mrs Meanwell!" 

And like cat and dog, breakfast being jinished, they 
parted. Christopher to scold Eliza for defending Mr 
Capias, Mrs Meanwell to remonstrate with Helen, do. 
do. Eliza danced away from her father to the piano, 
to learn a new song of Capias's presentation, and Helen 
sighed out her grief at her mother's opposition to Capias, 
over a beautiful Polyglot Bible, the gift of the young 
attorney. 

* ***** 

I like to meet people at breakfast. Therefore, reader, 
we will take coffee again with the Meanwell's. Sup- 
pose it on December twenty-ninth, — eighteen-hundred 
and any year you please, 

" I do think, papa, we ought to improve the sleighing, 
and take a ride for New Year's," said Eliza. 

" And I think so too," cried Mrs Meanwell. 

'' And I," said Helen. 

" And I," said Christopher. " Where shall it be, 
Eliza?" 

" To Providence, pa. It does seem so odd to Mr 
Capias, that we have lived so long within twenty miles 
of that city without ever having been there. I never 
was in Rhode Island." 

" D — n Mr Capias !" said the gentle father. 

" You shock me, Mr Meanwell — but I dislike Mr 



OLD KIT. 199 

Capias as much as you do. I think we had better go to 

B to attend the ordination." 

" No, I won't ! You may, if you please, go there with 
Helen, /go to Providence, with Eliza." 

January 2d, 18 — . " Such a sermon," said Mrs 
Mean well. 

" Such a prayer," said Helen. *' I do wish Mr Ca- 
pias could have heard it." 

" Mr Capias, indeed !" said Eliza. 

" And why not Mr Capias ?" said Kit. " He is just 
the canting thing for your sister." 

^' Mr Meanwell, I am astonished — surprised — grieved 
at your impiety. Mr Capias is no more of a Christian 
than yourself!" said Mrs Meanwell. 

'' What do you mean, madam ? Do you take me for a 
Jew, or a Pagan, or a Hindoo, or — or — or, — at any rate 
I am not a hypocrite, like Capias." 

*' He is not a hypocrite, father," said Eliza. 

" Well, well, child, we did not need him at Provi- 
dence to add to pur enjoyment, did we, Eliza?" 

Eliza blushed. 

In the country, they read the newspaper after break- 
fast. Mr Christopher Meanwell composed himself in 
his arm-chair to read the Literary Subaltern. "An 
odd fish that Southworth, the printer of this paper. I 
subscribed day before yesterday." 

" Who is married, father ? " said Helen. 

At that moment Eliza glided away from behind her 
father's chair, and slipped out of the room. The old 
gentleman wiped and adjusted his spectacles, found the 
proper reading distance, and — dropped the Literary 
Subaltern, as if it had been a heated poker. Forth- 



200 CORRECTED PROOFS, 

with his lips opened, and there issued from his moutrr- 
an unusual stream of his usual expletives — ending with 
■ " Liz, you slut ! Liz ! Eliza !" No Eliza answered. 

Helen picked up the paper — read — and swooned, — 
Mrs Meanwell caught it up — looked, and tried to faint. 
Perceiving, hov/ever, that Helen's fit was real, she con- 
cluded to postpone hers, till her daughter recovered. 

" A canting, hypocritical young scoundrel ! If he had 
been a young man of spirit — " 

"I tell you he is l" screamed Mrs Meanwell; "a 
wild graceless youth — a harum-scarum dog, a — " 

" By Heaven, I believe you're right, madam, and it 
is not so bad after all. I'll go look after him." 

He met Mr and Mrs Capias at the door. "Was this 
3^our scheme, Eliza?" She looked at Capias. " Was 
it yours, sir?" He looked at Eliza. "Aha! it was 
contrived between you. I'll disinherit you, madam." 

" We expected it, sir," said Capias. 

" You did, did you ? Well then, d n me if I do 1 

I'm determined to disappoint you, at any rate." 

The manoeuvre by v/hich he foiled the tri-bodied Cer- 
berus which guarded Eliza, the reader has perceived. 
To Kit, he was a hypocrite, his detestation — to the wife, 
he appeared a rake, her just abomination — to Helen, he 
played the hypocrite, but so guardedly that she did not 
see through the disguise — and to Eliza, he seemed what 
he was. The ruse formed a new division in the Mean- 
well family, daughters against parents. 

Eliza out of the way, Helen soon consoled herself 
in one of her old loves, for the loss of Capias — and Helen 
and Eliza, now both married matrons, often make merry 
ovej the story of the ride to Providence. The old 
gentleman repeats it, as often as he can find a victim 



SIR, A secret! 201 

upon whom to inflict it. He delights in Capias, and even 
the old lady has ceased to consider her son-in-law an 
absolute criminal. 



SIR, A SECRET! MOST IMPORTANT! 

" I'll tell you what it is, Burley, I've no business 
here." 

'^ /came for business, you for pleasure." 

*' True, but it was for a day, and you have made a 
week of it. Here I am, twenty-five miles from the 
city—" 

*' An awful distarice, truly, that you may accomplish 
on the rail-road in forty-five minutes." 

'' Yes, but I might as well be with the Khan of Tar- 
tary, as here, inasmuch as nobody at home knows of 
my visit to this city of spindles." 

" We will back to-day — this hour, if you like." 

" This hour we must, if at all ;" and in a short time 
we were shooting over the Boston and Lowell rail-road. 
It was the last trip for the day, and when we reached 
the city, it was nearly or quite dark. Baggage I had 
none, so I refused the importunities of a score of hack- 
ney coachmen, and footed it alone up Leverett Street. 

" Very mysterious," I overheard one of a knot of 
men say, at the corner of Barton Street. 

" About twenty-five years of age," said one of a 
group, at the corner of Vernon Street. Just my own 



202 CORRECTED PROOFS. 

age exactly. " The body was found in the water, yes- 
terday," said another. ^' Indeed, and do they know it 
was he ?" " Yes, by his clotliing ; the face was so 
terribly disfigured, that his friends could not recognise 
it." 

Another case of suicide, thought I. Well, I shall 
know all about it when I get home ; but I stopped again, 
before a store in Green Street, where a man was read- 
ing from the evening paper, aloud, a paragraph about 
the suicide ; the name I did not hear. " A young 
man of respectable connexions — retired and modest to 
timidity in his manners, and of irreproachable private 
character. No possible reason except temporary insan- 
ity can be assigned for the deed. He has left a wife 
and two children." 

" Poor fellow !" I sighed, and pushed on. Let me 
see — the tea hour is passed, and my help-meet, though 
a very good woman in her way, will not fail to give me 
a pretty affectionate bit of a lecture for my week's in- 
dulgence of a truant disposition. Bitter though such a 
visitation may be, it is no provocative of appetite — and 
I took the precaution to drop into an eating-house, thus 
to take my wife's lecture upon a full stomach. The 
curtain drawn upon me, I v/as too busy for a few mo- 
ments to notice any thing out of the four feet square 
box in which I was discussing a pretty substantial sup- 
per. Presently, appetite somewhat appeased, I became 
less occupied in creature comfort, and listened to the 
conversation of two persons from whom I was divided 
by the low partition. 

" He must have been intemperate.'* 

"No, he was not." 

" In debt, then." 



SIR, A secret! 203 

" No, I was well acquainted with him." 

And I knew that voice, but I could not immediately 
recollect whose it was. He proceeded. 

" I was well acquainted with him. He was remark- 
ably economical — prudent to a fault, yet very benevo- 
lent — acutely sensible to the sufferings of the unfortu- 
nate about him — very sensitive — yearning for sympathy 
in his sombre moods, and always anxious to impart his 
pleasure to those about him. He would deny a friend, 
or even a mere acquaintance, nothing." 

IMy picture to the life, thought I, as I nibbled at the 
last fragment of flesh on a drumstick. Hope ?ni/ good 
feelings will never lead me to suicide. Paid my scot 
and exit, just as the eulogist of the dead emerged from 
his cell. 

When I reached Street, a crowd were turn- 
ing into it. I joined the tail of the throng, and hearing 
discourse upon the universal topic, the suicide, won- 
dered which of my neighbors it was, and wished I had 
staid at Lowell until, at least, " seven of the nine days 
of wonder" had passed over. But, thought I, out of 
evil good may come — and, upon the whole, I am glad 
he lived in this street. My wife, from the circumstance, 
may be acquainted with his family, and there will, of 
course, be a diversion of her attention from my delin 
quencies. Wonder if she has heard of it 1 If not, 
such a delightfully interesting and authentic piece of 
news will be an excellent peace-offering. So thinking, 
I turned down a court — scaled two or three fences, and 
my shins to boot — made a circuit, and reached my door 
before the crowd. Took out my key, entered the hall, 
and put my hand upon the sitting-room door, which 



204 CORRECTED PROOFS. 

stood an inch ajar. Unusual noises there, made me 
hesitate. 

"Will they bring him home to-night?" sobbed my 
rib — and then she burst into a fit of outrageous weep- 
ing, which would have prevented the possibility of her 
hearing, had a reply been attempted — and all the women, 
of whom I supposed, by the sound, there must have 
been a dozen%t least, accompanied her, but in more of 
a dutiful, regulated, and complaisant pitch. 

Her old hysterics again, thought I. Hang it, but 
^he's too compassionate — she could hardly weep with a 
better relish for myself A tap on the outer door — and 
as I looked out at the side-lights, I saw the whole posse 
of charitable neighbors, idlers, and others, who upon 
any mournful occasion crowd themselves forward, solely 
because they presume that nobody at such a time wilJ 
have the nerve to kick them back. One of the women 
brushed by me to open the door — in walked a clergy- 
man as pioneer — then there was a rush of some half 
dozen of the crowd — then came a coffin. I stopped 
for no more, but bolted for the kitchen stairs. At the 
head stood the only member of my kitchen cabinet — a 
dusky wench, who, the moment I came near enough 
for the light of the lamp she held to fall on my features, 
set up a howl, and rolled down the flight backward. 
She hardly touched the floor, but bounded up again, 
and made her escape at a back window, taking the sash 
with her, to be sure of an aperture to creep in at, on 
her return. 

I began to have my misgivings, and sat down in the 
kitchen to consult with myself how to act in the di- 
lemma. A man descended the stairs. 



SIR, A SECRET 



305 



** Can you tell me, sir, whose body they have brought 
to the house V 

*' Yes — it will kill his wife — takes on shockingly." 

*'But who was he?" 

^'Who?" 

^' Yes 1— who?" 

*' Beautiful family — pity it was so broken up — " 

" Will you tell me who is the drowned man, or not?" 

*' Why, don't you know ?" 

I caught up the tongs. 

" It's Mr Albert Easy — and I expect I'll have to 
make a coffin for his wife too — poor woman." 

" Upon my honor, my friends have done well, to 
drown and make preparations to bury me, without my 
knowledge !" 

Through the Keverend Pastor, my wife was apprised 
of my actual existence, the coffin and the corpse to the 
contrary notwithstanding — through the care of the 
family physician, she escaped death from the surprise 
— and through the grief I had given her, and the joy 
sequent upon its removal, I escaped upbraiding. The 
clothes the defunct wore were once mine — that was a 
fact ; but I had made him a present of them but a week 
before, without my wife's knowledge — for, in all such 
disposals of property, I have found it safe to consider 
her my left hand, and to obey the scripture injunction, 
not to let the left hand know what the right hand doeth. 
The corpse removed to a city building, I hasted to find 
Burley ; detailed the whole affair, and ended by telling 
him I held him guilty. 

'^How?" 

" You persuaded me off, and would not even hear of 
my notifying my family of the journey." 
18 



206 CORRECTED PROOFS, 

" I expected to return the same day ; but, young 
man, I shall, for what you have suffered, in your own 
person and m that of your wife, you twain being one 
flesh, amply compensate you." 

" I won't hear of such a thing." 

" Yes, but you will ; it costs me nothing, and will 
vastly benefit you. I shall impart you a secret." 

I stood all attent, thinking I was about to hear of an 
anticipated rise or fall of some stock, or of some other 
mode of making money, known only to the knowing 
ones. 

" During my acquaintance with you, I have discov- 
ered your entire ignorance of one of the most simple 
but useful things in the world ; nay, it is indispensable 
to prosperity, and would have saved you the whole of 
your late vexation, if put in exercise when I asked you 
to leave the city unprepared." 

''Well, and what is it?" 

" The monosyllable NO, oftener necessary for your 
friends than your enem.ies. The latter, knowing and 
suspecting that you know the relation in which you 
mutually stand, seldom give you opportunity to deny 
them any thing ; but friends do, every day. Stop and 
sup with me, and " 



LIFE OF A PEDAGOGUE. 207 



A LEAF FROM THE LIFE OF A 
PEDAGOGUE. 

That Thomson's view of the duty of a teacher is not 
corroborated by all experience, any unfortunate usher 
to the Temple of Science, who may chance to read this, 
will bear me witness. Delightful indeed ! to teach 
that " young idea how to shoot," whose first shot, after 
the filial disobedience to parents, which comes of course, 
is a shot at the preceptor ! Delightful, indeed, to com- 
bat the wayward wickedness of the child, and the thou- 
sand and one whims of the mother — to bear with the 
troublesome and impertinent interference of friends and 
parents, or, as is sometimes t-he case, to know that they, 
the natural guardians of a child, do not trouble them- 
selves to remember even the name of him upon whom 
they have shifted, from their own shoulders, nine tenths 
of the trouble of managing their refractory sons and 
daughters! To travel, day and day over, the same 
dull road, every feature of which is uninteresting, and 
doubly dull by repetition — your path cheered by the re- 
flection, that the young rebels you are striving to induct 
into the mysteries of orthography, etymology, syntax, 
and prosody, are as undisguisedly indifferent to your 
teachings as you are, at your heart, in bestowing them. 
You affect an interest — they are at no pains to do it ; 
for children are never hypocrites, except in view of a 
flogging. And if there be in the intellectual waste a 
patch or two of ground upon which the seed is not 



208 



CORRECTED PROOFS. 



thrown away, so much the worse for the luckless in- 
structor. What is the merit of the industrious scholar, 
is, in the eyes of the mothers of dolts, the fault of the 
teacher. He is partial — else there could possibly be 
no difference in his pupils ; application, natural aptness 
to learn, are nothing. 

A schoolmaster may be detected in five minutes' 
conversation. While silent he may be mistaken for a 
poet, — either looking stark mad, "his eyes in a fine 
phrenzy rolling," — tripping alone in childish glee, as if 
glad as his scholars of an escape from confinement — or 
lounging along, all wan and wo-begone, as if just left 
at loDse ends by the flight of a fit of inspiration. Speak 
to him, and you recal him from his abstraction ; he as- 
sumes a magisterial air, and in the tone of his answer 
there is a savor of the dignity with which he is wont to 
preside in his little kingdom. This, to be sure, soon 
wears off, if he is not a mere machine for drilling 
;i,-b-abs into obtuse pates — the man shines through the 
formal exterior of the pedagogue. Glorious men, too, 
are often to be met under that mask. It is worth lift- 
ing, though nine in ten never see any thing but " the 
master." 

John Philpot Curran, when v/ar was first waged 
against the big wigs of the barristers, declared he w^as 
a non-entity without his wig. So would be schoolmas- 
ters, were it possible to strip them of the little peculiar- 
ities which have been theirs ever since, and long be- 
fore Dr Parr taught the rising generations under the 
reigns of three kings. — (Was it longer?) — Who would 
strip them ? Divested ol" all the little incidentals which 
go to constitute their insignia, and mark them peda- 
gogues, they were pedagogues no longer. Men of 



I, IFE OF A PEDAGOGUE. 209 

America — women are all Conservatives — men of Amer- 
ica, if you are not all Reformers, if there be any con- 
servative spirit left among you, protect the prerogative of 
the schoolmasters. Let not one inch of the ferule be 
abated — one iota of their dignity be called in question. 

Honor the teacher, for his office is thankless and 
profitless enough to deserve at least the reward of empty 
respect. ** Poor, paltry ten dollar note !" soliloquized 
a worthy member of the fraternity ; " poor paltry ten 
dollar note ! thou art the saving of a twelvemonth — 
the remnant of four quarterly stipends, redeemed with 
anxious and penurious care from the usurious grasp of 
the tradesman ; shall I sentence thee to solitary con- 
finement, till another annual round shall provide thee a 
fellow-prisoner? Poor, paltry ten dollars!" 

''A bundle for the master ! a bundle for the master !" 
and two of his daily torments, proud of a commission 
which sent them into the very sanctum of their awe- 
inspiring instructor, burst into the room. With the 
intuitive capacity for reading faces, which children 
possess, they saw their intrusion was unwelcome, and 
decamped. 

Our hero's name was — no matter. He did not always 
move in the useful, but obscure sphere of a teacher of 
youth, and although 

He is dead, and buried, and embalmed, 

yet, as the latter process is done in octavo, with boards, 
and an outer covering of kid, or cambric, or green 
baize, for a sarcophagus, many a pair of old ladies' 
spectacles would rise with horror at the irreverent anec- 
dote of one, who, if he is not canonized, is the subject 
18* 



210 CORRECTED PROOFS. 

of a volume of biography ; and that amounts to the same 
thing in our part of the world. 

The urchins had scarce left the chamber, ere their 
teacher followed. He probably owed the stairs no 
grudge ; though the iron-shod heels of his multipatched 
boots struck each step fiercely. Now he is hurrying up 
the street, and across the common, which, in all country 
towns, surrounds the " meetinghouse." His tap at the 
pastor's door is more than a double knock ; he has called 
out the grey-haired preacher, and while his bow legs 
tremble under him, and his arms furiously fly to eluci- 
date his enunciation, he delivers a message. Now he 
is off again, and at the door of each of the school-com- 
mittee a similar scene is enacted. He returns, but the 
phrenzy of passion which nerved and invigorated him a 
moment since has left him ; his pace is more sedate, 
and in his care-worn countenance are visible, the traces 
of more than one tear. The whole man is exhausted ; 
he drags the weary weight of his boots up stairs, locks 
his door after him, and the house jars with the shock 
with which he throv/s his weight into his big arm-chair. 
What can be the matter? 

The minister and the school-committee, one, two, 
three, are coming across the green, to answer the sum- 
mons. Upon entering the chamber, even the gravity of 
the pastor is insufficient for the occasion, and the others, 
less scrupulous, laugh outright. There lay a pair of 
cast — pantaloons had not become common in those days 
— here a broad-flapped waistcoat, mended like Pat's 
jackknife, till scarce a thread remains of the original 
garment — with divers other articles of men's attire, con- 
sorted, and kept in countenance, by the corresponding 
articles of woman's apparel ; and — horror of horrors ! — 



LIFE OF A PEDAGOGUE. 211 

there are not lacking " in the melee even garments of 
juvenile proportions. To fill up the collection, papers of 
snuff, of tea, of tobacco, two pipes carefully wrapped in 
an infant's pin*afore, a jug of treacle, another of New 
England nectar, a paper of sugar, and an ounce of pins 
are interspersed among the pieces of raiment which lay 
about the room, in admirable disorder. 

The preacher is first to bjeak silence. " What means 
this medley ? " 

" This," said the Dominie, his speech interrup.ted by 
sobs, " is a trick of the children of this wicked and 
perverse generation, upon their instructor." 
" Who are the offenders ? " 

" I cannot say. As many of the studious are wont, 
I was lost in abstraction when the turbulents entered, 
and I took no note of their countenances. But I will 
put the whole school to the rack — I will administer the 
torture to them till they confess ; yea, I will visit them 
with condign punishment." 

'' No, no, Mr ! " 

*' What then 1 Shall I be insulted with impunity, 
and my authority become a by-word ? Shall — " 

" W^ait patiently ; wait, and the culprits will reveal 
themselves. Meanwhile, the garments will make an 
acceptable present to some poor family." 

" Never, never! " roared the Dominie, his paroxysm 
returning. " Never shall my shame minister even to 
the comfort of the desthute 1 " and he sprang to his feet, 
seized the first article from the luckless parcel, which 
came to hand, and rent it to tatters, stamping furiously 
the while, and gnashing his teeth. His visiters sat in 
ill-subdued laughter at his frantic gestures and incoher- 
ent expressions. At length he got hold of the buckskin 



212 CORRECTED PROOFS. 

pantaloons, and tugged away upon them in his impotent 
wrath. 

" Thou lackest not the activity of Sampson, but thou 
hast not the strength \\\i\\ which he rent the young lion." 

Awful sacrilege ! The obdurate garment was des- 
patched direct at the preacher's head ! The jug of 
treacle was next immolated upon the hearth, the nectar 
followed, the tea was scattered about the floor, the sugar 
and tobacco were alike distributed, the pipes he broke 
into inch pieces, and tore the pin-afore to shreds with 
his teeth. His visiters had by this time retreated to the 
entry. One package alone remained — looking about 
him, like another Alexander, for another world to con- 
quer, he saw and seized it — grasped it in both hands, 
and, twisting it, a howl of pain announced the escape of 
the subtle contents — his eyes were filled with snufl" ! 

He sank back in his chair, exhausted with the ebul- 
litions of his rage, and in an agony of torture. His 
friends hastened with water, and other appliances, to 
relieve him of his misery. When he opened his eyes, 
another figure was added to the group, a poor woman, 
his laundress, who with many tears, was bemoaning the 
wreck. 

"What ails thee woman? " said the Dominie. 

" Why," said the preacher, " the bundle upon which 
you have disgraced and unmanned yourself was hers, a 
present to her from her daughter at service — it was 
brought you by mistake, your name happening to be like 
her goodman's." 

The pedagogue's head was bowed down in sorrow, 
repentance, and contrition of spirit. But his repentance 
brought forth good fruit. '' There," said he, tendering 



DREAMS. 213 

her i\iQ poor, paltry ten dollars, 'Met that be the repar- 
ation and purchase thy secresy." 

It was an ample atonement, and the evident grief and 
self-abasement of the teacher induced the other witnesses 

to silence. During his abode in , the adventure 

of the bundle never was reported against him; and when, 
in after years, he became less sensitive upon it, though 
he often told the story as a warning against the indul- 
gence of anger, he was careful to speak of the hero of 
it as of a particular friend, whose name he concealed 
from motives of delicacy. 



DREAMS. 



One of the most curious features of life asleep, is the 
utter disregard of the measure of time. Abercrombie 
quotes some instances. A person dreamed he came to 
America from England, spent a fortnight here, and nar- 
rowly escaped drowning on his return passage. The 
fright awoke him, and he found he had been asleep — 
ten minutes. Dreams in which an actual noise bears a 
part, take place after the alarm, though that is, appar- 
ently, the end of the dream — as thus : if a person dream 
of an earthquake, and, upon waking, find the noise has 
actually occurred, as is always the case, it is satisfacto- 
rily proved that the whole story of the earthquake takes 
place in the mind after hearing the noise, though that 
appears the catastrophe of the dream, and is the last 
thing remembered in reviewing it. 



214 CORRECTED PROOFS 



THE MAIDEN AUNT. 

It is not in large cities, in the filthy streets which are 
the chosen residences of sailor-landlords, and on crowded 
and noisy quays, that the American sailor on shore is 
to be seen in his true character. In cities, the neglect 
of the better portion of the community has led Jack to 
turn away from the respectable, as from people who 
slight him; and has induced him to embrace the ready 
and Y apixc'ious friendshi'i) of landlords, shipping-masters, 
and people of an equivocal character. But go to the 
nurseries of seamen, to the small towns which dot our 
coast — where Jack has parents, brothers, sisters, and 
acquaintances, among whom his arduous calling is es- 
teemed almost the only occupation worthy of manhood, 
there, " Richard is himself. " As in other times the 
soldier was the only successful applicant for the hand 
of fair ladye, in these small maratime towns, it is the 
sailor — " none but the tar deserves the fair ! " A tar- 
paulin hat purchases more respect than a plumed helmet 
— and the two-inch ribbon upon it is a better passport 
to favor, than are the decorations of any order of nobility. 
Jack at home is not the noisy roystering dog — indiffer- 
ent to good or ill opinion, that you see him in the city, 
but feeling his dignity, the respected and the courted, 
he carries a high head and an independent. 

Now for the principal personages in our tale. As all 
a sailor's ideas of comfort on shore are associated with 
motion — on foot, on horse-back, or in a tandem, we shall 
introduce you to them in the street. Jack's hat describes 



THE MAIDEN AUNT. 215 

forty-five degrees of a circle, as it touches the cottage- 
bonnet of the lady on his arm, and then is carried away, 
by the sway of his body, to such a distance opposite, 
that you half imagine the wearer is about to fall prostrate. 
In person, he is below the middle size — he might have 
been above — but, as an iron case prevents a Chinese 
lady's foot from growing to its fair proportion, the stinted 
accommodations of a ship's forecastle have taught Jack's 
body to conform in altitude to its ocean home. His 
dress is the everlasting navy blue, his hat a carefully 
brushed beaver — for on state occasions like this, the tar- 
paulin is laid aside — pantaloons, of amplitude sufficient 
for three fashionable pairs, a frock-coat, and gingerbread 
worked vest, half concealed by the enormous flying ends 
of a black silk neck-cloth. Pumps, with a yard of ribbon 
in each latchet, complete his equipments. His intelli- 
gent face has been bronzed by the suns of Ind ; in his 
ears are a pair of plain gold rings, and his fingers are 
as faithfully hooped as a liquor cask. His present study 
seems to be, so to demean himself as to appear uncon- 
scious of the proximity of any thing feminine — an air 
assumed in contradistinction to the behavior of a lands- 
man, who, in the same situation, would, by thrusting 
his head under the lady's bonnet, and making smirks 
and grimaces, lead an observer to imagine him uncon- 
scious of the presence of any save his Dulcinea. Jack 
affects an indifference which he does not feel — Bucky 
assumes the appearance of an attachment of which he 
hardly possesses the shadow. 

We would not for our right hand slight the lady — 
but as we cannot always muster impudence to stare in- 
tently enough to be able to describe female beauty, like 
a painter, if the portrait is not a good one it is not her 



216 CORRECTED PROOFS. 

fault, but ours. She has too much of the girl, to be 
styled a woman, and yet there is something in that face, 
which would seem to convey mute reproof, did you pro- 
nounce her a girl. A profusion of jet black curls relieves 
the shade of a complexion which approaches very near 
that of a brunette — and when those curls slide too un- 
comfortably near her " bonnie black eyne," there is 
something in the toss of her head as she shakes them 
back, which seems to say she would shake you off as 
promptly and as decisively, if you put her to the trial. 
There is a latent roguish leer in her velvet black eye, 
which attracts and repulses at the same moment — and, 
with the compressed lip, and other demi-demure features 
of her face, it altogether forms a riddle, upon which, if 
one dared, he would delight long to gaze. Her form is 
neither gross nor ethereal — you cannot swear that she is 
an angel — and will not aver that she is not. Is the des- 
cription too romantic? We will dash the romance with 
a name — her name — it was Achsah Nelson. Of a truth 
our puritan fathers delighted in saddling Hebrew names 
upon their children. 

They have strolled to the beach — Mackenzie, with 
his hands in his beckets, is resting his broad back against 
a high rock. A few feet in front of him, his gypsey, 
perched upon a ridge of pebbles thrown up by the surf, 
is, with finger elevated, giving him a taste of matrimony 
in advance, in the shape of a lecture admonitory. An 
opinion is entertained by some uncharitable people, that 
those who give good advice, and then caution the re- 
cipient of his liability to neglect it, talk, in part, from 
experience. 

*' Now, John, you must never be jealous of me. But 
I know you will ! " 



THE MAIDEN AUNT. 217 

How the deuce should she know that? 

* « # « « » 

On the morrow, Mackenzie went to sea. It could 
never be ascertained whether Achsah wept at his de- 
parture, or not — for she is one of those persons, who, 
when they weep, do it for their own sole amusement, 
and carefully exclude all others from participation in an 
employment so agreeable. If Mackenzie had broken 
his chains before leaving her, he never would have known 
whether or not she cared a copper about it — and nobody 
knew whether the engagement between our sailor and 
his ladye love was merely in the stage premonitory, or 
a settled thing — except themselves. There are some 
few women in the world, who do not make confidants 
of all their acquaintances. Achsah had read more chap- 
ters in the Bible than pages of romance — the more the 
pity, for the interest of this history — for we never could 
learn that she went even once alone to the sea-shore, 
to sit and imagine her true love's course upon the track- 
less deep — nor that she sat a single hour, by moonlight 
on a rock, watching the spot where she lost sight of the 
speck, into which the " majestic vessel dwindled in the 
distance." We have also sought in vain for some inter- 
esting record of the events of Mackenzie's passage, but 
find only such memoranda as the following : 

'' G K. 4 F. Course, S. S. W. Wind, N. Light 
squalls, witho-ain." 

* # * # * » 
The view of Valparaiso from the bay is one of the 

most beautiful in the world. To the right, it seems as 
if the Andes had made a stride quite to the sea-shore. 
Bluff hills, rising in almost artificial uniformity, one 
above another — the first of the range having only a nar- 
19 



218 CORRECTED PROOFS. 

row beach between its base and the water — are studded 
with white cottages with red tiled roofs. At the foot of 
these hills, stands the fort, under the guns of which the 
Essex was captured during the second war with Britain, 
in defiance of the law of nations. To the left, the bases 
of the hills are farther removed from the water, and 
here the principal part of the town is built — standing 
out in beautiful and bold relief, from the dark back- 
ground formed by the mountains. The semi-circular 
shore of the bay is entirely free of rocks, except in one 
place, for the greater part of its extent. The harbor is 
open to the Northerly storms which visit it in the winter, 
and it would seem that Nature had, in forming the port, 
made the level beach, as a comparatively easy pillow, 
on which to lay the vessels, which, at that season, drift 
from their moorings. The single ledge of rocks above 
alluded to, is by sailors called Cape Horn, from a real 
or fancied resemblance. 

As the vessel to which Mackenzie belonged was to 
lay some weeks at Valparaiso, the master took the oppor- 
tunity thoroughly to overhaul and repair her rigging. 
Every spar on board was sent down, and nothing left 
standing but her naked lower masts. While the ship 
was thus stripped, the first " Norther," for the Winter of 
18 — came on. Despite of every exertion to strengthen 
her moorings, she drifted. The cables were payed out 
to the last inch, but long scope or short was alike inef- 
fectual to prevent her drifting ashore. To add horror 
to their danger, Cape Horn, the only spot from which 
they might not hope to escape alive, was the point to 
which they were rapidly driven. Had it been possible 
to hoist a jib or staysail, they might have run her upon 
the beach — but in less time than is occupied in relating, 



THE MAIDEN AUNT. 219 

the helpless vessel was driven upon the rocks, and in 
sight of thousands upon shore, but out of the reach of 
their assistance, all on board perished — dashed to death 
among the rocks, or drowned on board. Before the 
danger became imminent, her launch had parted its 
painter and drifted ashore, and the only two persons 
who escaped, were absent with the other boat. Of these 
two, one was Mackenzie. He could, from the shore, 
see the supplicating attitudes of his friends on board, 
but to reach them was utterly impossible — though he 
did not abandon his attempts till the boat was swamped, 
and himself and his companion dragged insensible from 
the surf. 

On the morning following, Mackenzie stood on the 
beach. The sun was bright, as if its lustre had never 
been dimmed by storm — the bay as placid as if its sur- 
face had never been ruffled. A busy crowd were picking 
up the fragments of the vessel and her cargo, which had 
drifted ashore; and under an awning made of an old 
sail, the remains of his perished comrades were lying. 
His little all of property had been destroyed with the 
ship — he was friendless, in a strange land, and among 
a strange people. Did he despair ] — No. He thought 
of his home as a refuge he should one day reach, and 
the one bright particular star of that Ileaven on earth, 
beamed encouragingly and mildly bright upon his heart, 
in his desolate situation. It whispered Hope. 

****** 

Mackenzie shipped on board an American vessel, 
and was " homeward bound." Bright dreams of future 
happiness flitted before his mental vision, and though he 
was destitute, he thanked God, with the ready philoso- 
phy of a sailor, that life was spared, and entered upon 



220 CORRECTED PROOFS. 

his duty with as much cheerfulness, as if he had neyer 
known adverse fortune. One day a letter was handed 
him from home, which, addressed to the care of the 
Consul, had found its way more directly than such 
messengers usually travel from Maine to Georgia. He 
glanced at the signature, and bounded into the fore-top, 
to enjoy it alone. 

" ' Dear John — I take my pen in hand, to inform you 
that I am in good health, and hope these few lines find 
you enjoying the same blessing. My niece is well, but 
would not write.' " 

^' An old fashioned beginning, any how. Her niece, 
let's see — about knee-high to a toad. Who wants her 
to write ? " 

" ' So I write myself, but she says I may send love." ' 

*' She's very good, and I hope she'll not miss it." 

" ' At my age, John, you may think me foolish to talk 
of marriage — ' " 

*' Don't fret about that. I don't see what ails her age, 
though — she's old enough." 

"'Mr Hartley has long been pressing in his atten- 
tions — ' " 

" An old scoundrel ! " 

*" And I have at last consented to marry him.' " 

" The devil you have ! " roared Jack, as he crushed 
the letter in his hand. After a moment or two, he be- 
came partially calmed, and carefully spread the letter 
open again. 

*" I am convinced it will be for the interest of my 
niece — ' " 

" D — n your niece ! " 

" * I shall be married before your return, therefore this 
is the last from Aciisah Nelson.' " 



THE MAIDEN AUNT 



221 



Jack crushed the obnoxious letter again, and tossed 
it into the sea — demanded his discharge — was refused — 
and ran away. Application was made to the authori- 
ties, and the town searched for the fugitive, to no purpose. 
At length he was overtaken in the mule path to Santi- 
ago, brought back^ and lodged, till the vessel should 
be ready to sail, in a comfortable place, called in the 
vernacular of that region, the Calabozo, Anglice, JaiL 

^ ^ ^ TV TT TP 

In a small but tidy room in a house in , our friend 

Jack Mackenzie was seated with two ladies, a few weeks 
after his return from Valparaiso. The younger is Ach- 
sah — the elder, she, who when Jack was last at home, 
was her Maiden Aunt — she to whom Achsah was in- 
debted for her euphoneous appellative. It would be dif- 
ficult now to confound the names of the two, inasmuch 
as the one is Mrs Achsah Hartley, widow of the late 
Mr John Hartley ; the other Mrs Achsah Mackenzie. 
It is but justice to the Maiden Aunt, to state, that not 
even love for her niece and namesake, would have tempted 
her into matrimony for money ; but between her late 
husband and herself there had been in early youth some 
symptoms of marriage — the match was broken off, till 
in the autumn of their lives, the ancient turtles decided 
to pair. 

Having brought our hero into safe anchorage, we leave 
him, first explaining to the reader what may appear in- 
congruities. When an opportunity offered to send a 
letter to Valparaiso, Achsah plumply refused to write. 
If she could have written, sealed, and despatched the 
letter, without the knowledge of any living soul, she 
would have done it ; but like many incomprehensible 
females who cloak real affection under pretended indif- 
19* 



222 CORRECTED PROOFS. 

ference, she would not thus tacitly confess, even to her 
aunt. That maiden lady, who, at sixty, was on tlie verge 
of matrimony, could not bear that true love like Mac- 
kenzie's should be slighted altogether, and therefore 
wrote the letter which put our hero in the Calabozo. 
She had often seen Mackenzie, and had he been as 
curious about the ancient spinster, as she was about 
him, the mistake had never happened. That her letter 
related more to herself than her niece, we have seen. 
Can we wonder at that, in a lady's epistle, who, at three- 
score, was just ready to be married for the first time? 



BOOKS 



" Who kills a man," says Milton, " kills a reasonable 
creature— ^God's image; but he who destroys a good 
book, kills Reason itself." Think of that, confectioners, 
who bake pastry under stray leaves of Milton, and en- 
velope " kisses,'^ in fragments of " A Serious Call." 
What a load of sin, too, sticks to the fingers of the trunk- 
maker, who makes Captain Cook's Voyages describe 
the circuit of a band-box, and the problems in Euclid 
prove the distance from end to end of a portmanteau. 



MUSIC MAD. 223 



MUSIC MAD. 

[The following, founded on the popular opera "La Sonnam- 
bula," it was at first the author's intention to omit — regarding it 
as having only a temporary interest. Upon second thoughts, how- 
ever, it appeared to him that if "Corrected Proofs" have a life 
coeval with La Sonnambula, the book will be read as long as the 
English opera exists — a period a year or two longer than he dares 
to predict fur it. 

The reader will perceive that the lines quoted are from the 
opera. — While about making explanations, it is proper to ac- 
knowledge indebtedness to Mr T. S. Fay, for the suggestion of 
the following — taken from a paper of his, similar in design, founded 
upon the opera of Cinderella.] 

The Woods are gone — it is over now, the opera and 
the uproar. One may think in prose, and talk without 
modulating his voice to a recitative ; in a word, be sane 
without being unfashionable. Some there are still, how- 
ever, in whose heads the clear notes of Mr and Mrs 
Wood, and the thorough base of Mr Brough have not 
yet done reverberating. My friend, Theodore Chro- 
matic, is one of the affected. 

I lost sight of him, one day during the theatrical visit 
of the Woods, at ten o'clock, P. M., pursued all day, 
without overtaking, and at night caught a glimpse of 
him going into the Tremont Theatre. I followed, as 
soon as I could, by pressing in ; purchased a ticket, and 
found the head of Theodore Chromatic framed in one 
of the apertures in the box doors, affording the audience 
inside, a living portrait with fixed eyes. I touched him 
on the shoulder — 



224 CORRECTED PROOFS. 

"Is it cashed?" 

" No, it's Brough.'^ 

Dollars and cents — there was an answer ! The fact 
is, he and I are both of this world, and who in the world 
does not want money ? We had made a ngte : he was 
to get it negociated between ten and two ; two, P. M., 
is a witching time on 'change. I lost sight of him, as 
I said before, and looked in vain. At forty-live minutes 
past one, des}>erate — furious, I commenced shinning, 
and saved my credit at the bank by the skin of my con-^ 
science — my nominal credit, I mean. The tellers and 
two or three of the directors looked av.ful hard and in- 
quiringly at the big drops of sweat on my temples in 
January. The fruits of that sweat, who can guess 1 

To return to Theodore. I touched him again. He 
put back his arm, beating time as he deprecated inter- 
ruption ; but I persevered. *' About that note?" 

*' It is certainly as low as E." 

Clap — thump — hurra ! Theodore Chromatic smashed 
a pannel of the box-door. 

The first act finished, I again pushed up to my friend. 
*' I must say, you're a charming — " 

" Charming ! delightful !" Taking a cue, away he 
went — 

" ' As I view now these scenes so charming, 
With dear remembrance my heart warming, 
Of days long vanished — O, my heart is filled with pain — ' " 

" So are my boots," said I ; " both my feet ache ; 
I've run—" 

" Run ! I've run and fought too, like a handcartman. 
Took me two hours to get a ticket, and now I'm num- 
ber forty-three." 

" But about business — '* 



MUSIC MAD. 225 

" Business ! she does it delightfully. Mrs Wood un- 
derstands stage business — every thing — actress and 
songstress ; there goes the act drop." 

Theodore rigged his head in at the window again, and 
I fell back, determined to watch and catch the first 
lucid interval. 

Such an interval did not occur that evening. I sat 
out the opera in the slips, made myself as philosophically 
content as I could ; more than content, I was delighted, 
but not to insanity. 

The next morning I was at my friend's store betimes. 
I had a check to make good at ten. 

" Theodore, I should hate to be so crazy as you are. 
You forget your business — " 

" O no— •' 

*' And your debts — " 

" O no— 

* Still so gently o'er me stealing, 
Memory will bring back the feeling. 
Spite of all my griefs revealing, 
That I owe them — that I owe them still.' " 

" Such a medley as your head ! Notes, business and 
musical, mixed — " 

" Phoh ! fudge !" And he assumed an attitude — 

" 'Ah! don't mingle one human feeling ! ' " / 

** Why, this is worse than — " 
'' Don't mention it ! 

' We will form a heaven of love ; 
We will form a he-a-e-a-e — ' " 

Here my friend got lost among the high notes. Some- 
body in the street bellowed " Fire !" 

'' Where is it ?" said Theodore, running to the door. 



226 CORRECTED PROOFS. 

" Why, you cried first," said the man of whom he 
asked. 

" I'll be hanged if I did !" 

The evening papers chronicled a false alarm. 
****** 

I dined with Theodore by invitation. As I stood at 
the door, after touching the bell, I heard a racket, a 
rolling and a tumbling down stairs. Something broke 
the glass I looked through, in my face. I opened the 
door, and a heap of mortality at the foot of the flight 
assumed the likeness, and rose to the altitude, of my 
friend, Theodore Chromatic. I picked up a dish-cloth ; 
Chromatic snatched it from my hand, and ran up stairs, 
singing, 

" 'To vs'hom belonging? — to whom belonging ?' " 

" In the name of common sense, Theodore, what does 
this mean ?" 

" O, nothing ; only I've been rehearsing." 

" Rehearsing ?" 

''Yes ; the kiss at the end of the first act of La Son- 

nambula. Mother B 's cook played Amina to my 

Elvino, and the old lady was Brough." 

** Rough, if I might judge." 

*' Good ! I owe you one. Brough, rough. Count Ro- 
dolpho. She parted us." 

'' So I saw." 

During dinner, the presence of some twenty ladies 
and gentlemen kept Theodore's music sotto voce. 
" Take heed, whisper low," he sang to me from Masan- 
iello, as the landlady sailed into the room behind the last 
dish, rosy with ire and steam, and fluttering in a dinner 
dress hastily put on. She looked carving knives at 
him, as she took her place. 



MUSIC MAD. 227 

" * With hair loose streaming, and eyes bright beaming, 
O, then it comes upon oar fears,' " 

sung the incurable, as a potato fell in his lap from a 
plate she thrust into his hand. 

Dinner, and the discussion of its solids, kept him 
quieter than I had hoped ; but all mouths started agape 
with astonishment, as he rose from the table and struck 

*• * If it's permitted, my sweet hostess, I would now retire,' '* 

with a malicious emphasis on the sweet. 
*' You are certainly drunk !" said I. 
" No, but I mean to be doubtfully," said he, as he 
closed and fastened his room door, and produced glasses 
and a bottle of wine. A quick, hasty footstep on the 
stairs, a tap on the door. No answer. She commenced 
forcing it. 

'* 'It shakes now, it breaks now ! 
Ah, Heaven !' " 

Away the latch flew. 

" Mr Chromatic, I won't put up with such doings in 
my house, that I won't. You shall make an apology." 
'* 'Ah ! can you doubt me ?' " 

" Mr Chromatic, I won't be made a scandal of — I 
won't ; I—" 

*' Now, don't be jealous, Mrs B , because I 

kissed the cook — 

* Still I can kiss thee — but ah ! thou art sadly withered !' " 

" No I aint withered neither, you insulting puppy ; 

but I'll turn you out of the house, I will 1 You don't 

go to bed no night till morning — " 

'' O yes, I was in last night at eleven." 

" Well, you kept a racket and a noise in the chamber 

all night." 



228 CORRECTED PROOFS. 

" 'There are persons, who, while sleeping. 
Still, like day, their vigils keeping, 
Wandering, dreaming, speaking, smiling, 
Though in sleep their sense beguiling — 
Sonnambulists they are named, it seems. 
From their walking while in their dreams.' '* 

" Withered !" muttered Mrs B , with a hitch of 

her shoulders, and a peep in the glass. 
*' Yes," warbled Chromatic — 

" ' Yes, for thee time's sad power 

Thy beauties have withered, sweet flower ;' " 

I dodged involuntarily as the widow approached us, 
fairly frantic. Hers was no acting. Chromatic seized 
a chair to defend himself. 

" ' Go ! guilty traitress !' " 

" Pm not guilty !" screamed the widow. 

** Why, mother, you 're perfect in your part ! 

' Now avoid me — now away !' 

Glorious finale — first rehearsal 

* We disdain thee, and with reason !' " 

" Better pay your board, then !" 

" And increase your hoard, then ! Original ! Capital ! 
Duetto, Impro — Improvis — give us the Italian !" 

*' Hear me !" shrieked the landlady. 

'' More of the author 1 why you certainly are per- 
fect ?" said Chromatic, in ecstacy. 

" ' Ah ! pray hear her. 
She will not, I'm sure, deceive you.' " 

said I, laughing. 

"You quoting, too? Well, I will hear her. What 
have you to say, mother ?" 



MUSIC MAD. 229 

" Why," sobbed the landlady, " a-bu-busing, heh-eh, 

heh-eh — it is cruel !'* 

" More of the author !" 

" Chromatic," said I, 

*' ' See there ! 
By thy treatment she will die — 
Forbear !' " 

" It is too bad, Mrs B ." 

** Heh-eh, heh-eh !" 

" Any apology I can make — " 

"Heh-eh, heh-eh!" 

*'I will.'* 

We managed to make her understand, and Chromatic 
"was pardoned, on promise of future good behavior. All 
this, however, did not prevent him from singing in a 
cracked voice Amina's solo. 

" ' Ah ! embrace me — ' *' 

Mrs B gave him a demi-scowl. 

" * While thus forgiving. 
Each a pardon thus receiving — ' " 

*' On conditions, recollect, Mr Chromatic," said the 
widow, as she left the room. 

" * On the earth while we are living, 
We will form a Hea — ' " 

** Take care, Theodore, you've created one alarm of 
fire to-day I" 
** I am mute." 

20 



230 CORRECTED PROOFS. 



THE GENIUS. 

For he a rope of sand could twist 
As tough as learned Sorbonist, 
And weave fine cobwebs, fit for skull, 
That's empty when the moon is full ; 
Such ES take lodgings in a head. 
That's to be let unfurnished. 

Didst ever in thy pilgrimage, encounter a Genius? 
I mean one of those deeply learned bipeds, who have a 
smattering of every thing but the useful, and are well 
versed in lore which benefits them not. Who can tell 
how many wheel-barrow loads of iron made the price 
of a day's labor in Spartan currency, but not how many 
dimes there are to an American dollar. Who are able 
to describe the Egyptian process of manufacturing paper 
from the reed papyrus, but cannot tell whether the paper 
now in use js manufactured in North America or New 
Zealand — or whether it is made of linen rags, or potato 
tops. Who can discourse learnedly upon King Philip's 
Macedonian Phalanx, and their weapons — but cannot 
distinguish a rifle from a fowling piece, or a percussion 
from a flint lock. Who can revel on black letter, and 
grow fat on musty manuscripts and relics of antiquity, 
or on books generally — but hardly know how to dispose 
of the knife and fork at table. Deeply learned in poli- 
tics and statistics, such an one can sometimes calculate 
to a farthing the expenses of government — the interest 
of the national debt, or the sum requisite for the sup- 
port of the army and navy, while he cannot readily tell 
the difference between the price of a week's board and 



THE GENIUS. 231 

a single meal. He can tell what use the Carthagenian 
women made of their hair, when they shaved their heads 
for the benefit of their country, but does not know the 
use of a comb in his own, though perchance he can 
describe the relics of ancient toilet paraphernalia, un- 
earthed at Herculaneum and Pompeii. 

Genius will sometimes strike into some particular 
path, and then it makes the possessor ignorant of every 
thing else. But an universal genius has som.e or all of the 
peculiarities above enumerated — or if not precisely those, 
others very similar. One trait, however, is. the univer- 
sal attribute of the possessor of genius — contempt for 
common things — more particularly for pecuniary matters. 
It is not always essential to drink gin and water, though 
Lord Byron would swallow that anti-sentimental bever- 
age — but disregard to pecuniary matters is a sine qua 
noil. If not actually possessed, it must be affected* 
Who ever heard of a genius making account of dollars 
and cents, or husbanding his income? The thought is 
preposterous. What ! descend to matters so common- 
place and necessary as taking heed to the acquisition and 
proper disposal of base coin? A genius is not a genius 
if he takes care of himself, or keeps an eye to the man- 
agement of his money — ergo. Sir Walter Scott was no 
genius at all. Lord Byron, too, has been suspected and 
accu.^ed of hinting that "monies" are worth looking 
after ; those, then, v*'ho can soar above such sordid con- 
siderations, go a flight beyond Scott and Byron. Oliver 
Goldsmith cared for no such trash, and although his 
works cleared vast sums, the author of the " Deserted 
Village " never was out of debt. He would give away 
money, and keep his tailor out of his bill. The author 
of Hudibras died as poor in pocket, as the every-day 



CORRECTED PROOFS. 

doggrel imitations of his style are in poetry. Henry 
Fielding " was naturally but little formed for economy," 
and scattered a handsome fortune brought him by his 
wife, and his own inheritance beside, in three years. 
Tom Jones himself could not have rattled it away faster. 
Smollet never could make the bailiff entirely '* forget 
the way to his habitation " — but I could not find space 
on a ream of foolscap to enumerate half the " illustri- 
ous poor " who kept themselves so. To be sure there 
are many exceptions — but as it is easier to imitate a 
genius in his extravagance than in his economy, every 
would-be-genius copies the former. They despise the 
labor attendant upon economy, and imagine themselves 
above those irksome duties, which are requisite to ob- 
tain necessaries as well as luxuries. 

Permit me to introduce you to a female specimen of 
the species. It came to pass some time ago, that a long, 
lank being of the feminine gender came to the residence 
of my father, bringing letters introductory and recom- 
mendatory from a friend of my sister. She was travel- 
ling for her health, and sooth to say, her appearance did 
not belie the plea of indisposition, which was her ostensi- 
ble reason for the journey. Every body in the house 
was delighted with the idea of being honored with a 
visit from a genius, for her fame had preceded her. She 
was urged to make a long visit, and nothing loth, took 
up her abode for a regular visitation. A room was 
cleared for her, and to this apartment, her bandboxes 
and portmanteau were carried. Her apparel appeared 
rather soiled and dusty — this my sister attributed, and 
with reason, to her journey. The same excuse however, 
would not answer for her neglecting to put herself in 
decent trim after her arrival — or for sitting through the 



THE GENIUS. 233 

evening in her dusty and road-worn habilaments. But 
she was a genius, and of course disregarded trifles. 

My sister, who seemed to consider the stranger a con- 
signment to her care, or in other words, her protege, 
undertook after tea to draw out the genius in conversa- 
tion, to convince her younger brothers, who could ill 
suppress their mirth ; and her parents, who hardly con^ 
cealed tjieir disgust, that the beauties of the mind, which 
our guest had cultivated, more than compensated for 
her lack of outward adornment. Miss Basbleu, who 
was used to being exhibited, readily took her cue, and 
away she went, over every subject into which she had 
ever dipped — evincing about as much acquaintance 
with each, as a sparrow who has. skimmed over a field 
of grain, may be supposed to possess of the natural 
history of it. Nine o'clock P. M. found her still talk- 
ing — my father beginning to yawn, and my mother 
knitting vehemently. At ten the old gentleman was 
asleep in his chair, and the old lady in the fidgets. At 
eleven, Miss Basbieu was alone with my sister. When 
at length she did retire, it would seem that she did it 
with an intention to draw on the morning for her loss 
of sleep during the evening before — as at the breakfast 
hour she was not visible. After waiting a reasonable, 
perhaps I should say an unreasonable time, a messen- 
ger was despatched to ascertain whether Miss Basbleu 
was dead or alive. Tiie little kitchen Mercury returned 
with a request that my sister would go to the guest's 
chamber. Caroline hied away to wait upon the genius, 
and shortly re-appearing, desired from Miss Basbleu, 
that breaktast should not be delayed on her account. 
No questions could pump from her the reason of the 
non-appearance of her protege — and after she had hastily 
20* 



234 CORRECTED PROOFS. 

swallowed her coffee, she returned to the genius, with 
whom she certainly appeared fascinated. 

At dinner Miss Basbleu appeared — and ate most un- 
poetically. She was in much better guise than on the 
evening before, and my sister's hand was visible in her 
toilet. I thought she wore a dress, which I had seen 
Caroline wear, but upon second thoughts, deemed it 
impossible that even a genius could travel without taking 
with her a change of apparel. Notwithstanding her 
appetite for dinner appeared so imperative. Miss Basbleu 
soon evinced that her ruling passion was stronger than 
even her appetite. She gave us, by way of an accom- 
paniment, a dissertation upon the ancient posture at 
meal-times, discoursed upon Roman luxury, and alluded 
to the extravagance of the Roman gourmands, who 
carried the expense of their tables sa far, that an impe- 
rial edict was issued, forbidding the price of a single 
entertainment to exceed a certain sum. Thence she 
danced to Cleopatra's feast, where the Egyptian queen 
dissolved a pearl of great price, in a cup of vinegar — 
and while upon the subject of precious stones, she took 
a trip to Arabia, and recounted the virtues supposed 
by those people to be inherent in divers jewels. While 
in Arabia, she condescended to inform us that Felix 
means Happy ^ and that Arabia Felix was so called, to 
distinguish it from Arabia Petrea, or the MocJci/. At 
length, perceiving that we were all waiting for her to 
rise from the table, she stopped short in the midst of a 
Latin q^uotation, and bolted the residue of her dinner. 
It is more than a fair task for ?ni/ learning to recount 
even the names of the subjects upon which she lectured 
— to give the substance of her dissertations would be 
for me an impossibility. No sentence, however trivial. 



THE G E x\ I U S . 235 

eoald be uttered, but slie would bang upon it a treatise 
on antiquity. Ma Conscience ! how the girl talked — 
talked — talked. Mother's head ached for a week after- 
ward, and father swore that it gaie him a distressing 
fit of English Grammar. Toward evening a walk was 
proposed, and here, the genius was as much at fault as 
at her toilet in the morning. Caroline's wardrobe had 
to suffer again to put the guest in walking trim, as she 
had unfortunately omitted to bring with her one half 
the little etceteras indispensable to a lady's equipment. 
Just as we had reached the door, a tremendous hiatus 
was discovered in the heel of one of Miss Basbleu's 
hose ; and one of her shoes was a morocco, and the 
other a prunella. We put back to refit, and having re- 
arranged Miss Basbleu's attire, while she laughed at us 
for taking so much pains with what she considered non- 
essentials, the party got again under weigh. 

It is one characteristic of a savante to consider her 
own sex too feminine for her notice, when there are any 
he creatures within reach. She regards the received 
course of female education too narrow, and deems the 
mind of the gentle sex as capable of grasping what are 
deemed masculine branches of education, as the lords of 
the creation themselves. Accordingly when Henry Bliss 
and sisters, joined our party. Miss Basbleu hardly wait- 
ed for an introduction before she fell upon him with all 
her artillery of Mythology, Antiquity and the Dead 
Languages, flanked by her light-corps of Belles Lettres, 
and supported with a corps de reserve of Logic, Rhet- 
oric, and English Grammar. The poor fellow was thun- 
derstruck and would have retreated, but Miss Basbleu 
followed him up with Geology, Botany, and Natural 
History — and made a dead thrust at him under cover of 



236 CORRECTED PROOFS. 

Phitonism. Finding himself fairly mastered^ Henry sur- 
rendered at discretion, not a little pleased at first, at 
being thus monopolised by a Genius. The female part 
of the party, notwithstanding their respect for the won- 
derful powers of the eccentric, could ill suppress their 
merriment, as they saw through all her manoeuvres. 
Caroline however was a little chagrined, as she consid- 
ered Henry her peculiar property — and taking the arm 
of a female friend, left the party, to avoid being longer 
disgusted with Miss Basbleu^s advances upon the young 
gentleman. The Genius's letters of introduction had 
lost half their weight on my sister. They walked home, 
and Miss Basbleu sauntered into the room an hour after- 
ward, protesting that she was as much fatigued as Han- 
nibal was after the passage of the Alps, and should seek 
the rest the Carthagenian hero found at Capua, on her 
pillow, as Henry Bliss had made her promise to take a 
long walk with him in the morning. 

Henry called in the course of the evening. My sister 
tauntingly told him that Miss Basbleu had retired. He 
supposed so, or he would not have called, as he had 
already endured one dose of bluc-ism, and had another 
in perspective on the morrovk'. " Why then invite her 
to walk V inquired Caroline. "Invite her !" ejaculated 
Henry, astonished. 

Poor Miss Basbleu ! She little dreamed how far the 
parallel between herself and Hannibal was to be carried. 
She had told Henry that she should not be visible in the 
evening, and imagined that her absence from the draw- 
ing room would render it a place of no attraction for 
him. She thought she had astonished him with her 
knowledge, captivated him with her charms, and secur- 
ed him as her own. Knowing less of ajfaires dii cceur 



THE GENIUS. 237 

than of the campaigns of Alexander, she imagined she 
had taken Henry by a coup de viain. But alas ! As 
Hannibal lost Rome by wintering at Capua, Miss Bas- 
bleu, by " retiring to her pillow" permitted a tete-a-tcte 
between Henry and Caroline. An explanation took 
place of course — Henry, whose politeness alone had 
induced him to agree to a walk on the following morn- 
ing, and to endure Miss Basbleu on the afternoon pre- 
vious, had called to inform my sister in the absence of 
her guest, of all the little slanders which the Genius 
had whispered in his ear respecting her friend — of her 
representations of my sister's ignorance, and unfitness 
for the wife of a gentleman, and of her cngag-i?ig Jiim 
to walk the next morning. In return, he learned the 
manner in which the genius had represented the pro- 
jected walk and the insulting air with which she did it. 
Between them a plan of operations was devised, which 
my sister put in execution. 

The Genius rose, punctual to the hour, but could 
find nothing in her chamber wherewith to deck herself, 
but her own wardrobe. " Parbleu !" exclaimed Miss 
Basbleu, " this dress will never answer !" as she looked 
at the dusty, dirty French calico, in which she had 
ridden two days before, and the only one, by the way, 
which she had in the world. " Sacre Dieu !" she con- 
tinued as she ascertained that divers little indispensa- 
bles to a lady's toilet, with which my sister had supplied 
her, had been removed from the chamber. " Sacre 
Dieu !" — for she could swear in French delightfully, 
and knew, as well as anybody, notwithstanding her af- 
fected ignorance, what was necessary to a morning 
dress—" Diable !" — for she cared as much as any belle 
how she looked when she had a conquest in view, 



238 CORRECTED PROOF S- 

notwithstanding her boasted superiority over trifles ; — 
*' I can never go out with Henry Bliss in this guise." 

Henry waited long for the Genius, and at length 
walked with Caroline in her stead. As they returned 
to the house, Miss Basbleu was getting into the stage, 
swearincr in Eno;lish, (for she could swear in EnMish 
as well as French, and despised fnnrnme weakness,) 
that our whole family were illiterate, uninformed, im- 
polite, and altogether wanting in the courtesy due to a 
genius like herself. 

So much for Miss Basbleu. Whether she writeth 
her name 3Iiss still, your deponent is unable to say — 
but sincerely hopes so. I have no enemy in the world 
that I know of — and I could wish none but an enemy 
so hard a lot as a union with such a genius. He would 
be obliged to breakfast on a Greek Lexicon, dine on 
Sanscrit, and sup on Hebrew or Chaldaic — and to put 
up with her reflections upon his ignorance by way of 
sauce, , 



S ^J^ E A L T H . 



** They obtain their living by stealth," said my friend, 
speaking of a certain class of people. Tried by the 
dictionary, perfectly correct — ' the act of stealing, theft.' 
But what a queer idea one has of the sentence, upon 
first hearing ! To do a thing by stealth, in the vernacu- 
lar, is to do it unperceived, and there are many who 
get a living thus — nobody knows how they do it. 



COMPLAINT OF A SMART FELLOW. 239 



COMPLAINT OF A SMART FELLOW. 

Si':ated alone in our sanctum, in perfect apparent ex- 
ternal quiet, the Phrenological Department of our upper 
story got into sad commotion. Ideality had been taking 
a nap, into which fatigue had thrown (him ? her ? or it?) 
and Self Esteem and Approbativeness were jogging the 
sleepy organ aforesaid for something which should ever- 
lastingly perpetuate the fame of the reader's very hum- 
ble servant. Acquisitiveness seconded their efforts, be- 
cause Hope had whispered that the progeny of Ideality 
might be worth dollars, and Language stood ready to 
clothe the bantling with words whenever it should make 
its appearance. Secretiveness with characteristic craft, 
concealed whatever interest she took in the discussion; 
Benevolence, who, like a coachman, is mounted on the 
front of the cranioiogical machine, looked down in pity 
to see how near the hubbub would drive the rest of the 
body to exhaustion — Comparison likened the confusion 
to that of Babel, and Reverence was sadly vexed that 
the tenants of the human head should so demean them- 
selves. Combativeness threatened to clear the premises 
of all the occupants ; but Cautiousness strove to molify 
his wrath, and hinted that a destruction of the whole 
organization would follow such a proceeding — Destruc- 
tiveness protested that such was the event of all others 
that he wished for. 

Just in time to prevent so dreadful a consummation, 
the door opened, and a'wan figure glided in, placed a 
written sheet on the table, and moved out again, without 



240 CORRECTED PROOFS. 

Uttering a word. The contents of that sheet were as 
follows ; — 

My Dear Mr E , 

I am one of those unfortunates who have " had great- 
ness thrust upon them." I have the reputation of being 
a tremendously smart fellow ; how I came by it is be- 
yond my power to tell, for, since my earliest recollection, 
the extent of any commendation that I recollect to have 
received for any particular feat, is " P-r-e-t-t-y w-e-1-1, 
but he might do better if he would." What that opin- 
ion is grounded on, is a mystery ; to me it appears about 
as reasonable as the stale conundrum, that a glass-blower 
can make an E gallop, because he can make a D can- 
ter. Oh the misery of having unconsciously perpetrated 
a crack article ! — Oh the odurousness of comparisons ; — 
Dogberry never knew half the extent of it — for Dog- 
berry was not a smart fellow. If he had been, he could 
not have slept on his watch — or indeed off his watch. 
And when one is compared with himself, or rather with 
what himself might he, if his friends are not partial 
judges, comparisons are odious indeed. I will give you 
one day from my diary. 

Rose at nine, on the morning of July fifth. A little 
headachy — stomach weak — ideas a confused medley of 
patriotism and wine fumes. Certain that I was in the 
state which in nautical parlance is designated by the 
phrase " a little how came you so," but uncertain how 
I came so. Pulse irregular — face flushed — head hot- — 
tongue furred — a little feverish. Thought of the chol- 
era, and hoped these were not symptoms premonitory. 
Sat down to coffee — opened the morning paper, filled 
with accounts of yesterday's celebration. Recollected 
where I got my head-ache, &c. " Mr made 



COMPLAINT OF A SMART FELLOW. 241 

a very happy oration, but we feel obliged in justice to 
him to say, that he was not hinnself." Hem — So much 
for what I thought one of my best efforts. " He had 
not spent labor enough upon it." It cost me a month's 
work! *' Altogether, it was a chaotic mass, sparkling 
with beauties, and, as a whole, may be regarded but 
as a brilliant proof of what the gifted orator might ac- 
complish, if he would." Vastly pleasing this, was it 
not ? Coffee finished, my particular friend, Mr Allwork, 
was announced. He wanted me only to prepare a se- 
-ies of regulars and fourteen volunteer toasts for the 
members of his club, and a speech to be delivered by 
the president, impromptu, upon his being toasted, at the 
approaching anniversary. He was followed by another 
friend, who v/ished me to write him a series of tem- 
perance resolutions ; — upon his heels came a third, 
who wanted a speech for an anti-anti-license-law meet- 
ing of grocers ; — a fourth came, who wished me to 
indite him a letter requesting an honorable dismission 
from a Calvinist church. Each swore me to secrecy, 
so I could not evade one by pleading my engagements 
with another — of course I was obliged to promise all. 

Noon. " The cry is still, they come." I have been 
applied to for stanzas for an album, for a very particu- 
lar friend, who wished to transcribe them into it over 
his initials, — and for a song for an amateur friend, whose 
excellent voice is to his head as the parchment to a 
drum, with the difference that while the drum aforesaid 
acknowledges its emptiness, m.y friend wishes to stuff 
his head with my rhyme and carol it as his own. Eve- 
ning. The curators of the Lyceum are entreating me 
to fill, this evening, a vacuum created by the disappear- 
ance of a lecturer on geology — to go into the chair, 
21 



242 CORRECTED PROOFS. 

aod prate of primary, secondary, tertiary and slatose 
formations ; of trap, granite, quartz, mica and pudding- 
stone — me, who hardly know a beryl from a flint. " But I 
must — I should oblige them very much — I am a talented 
f}ian,^' and must therefore be crushed to-night under ten 
thousand talents of stone ! 

There is a day — now come a day's consequences. 
The president of the club takes a seat in the Legislature 
— won by the laurels earned by mi/ speech. " It was 
an excellent thing," they say, " the production of a man 
of limited advantages. If Mr , (meaning my- 
self,) would only be alive enough to improve his talents 
thus, how proud his friends might be of him ! But he 
will do nothing, he is absolutely lazy." The temper- 
ance resolutions have stuck an ice-plant in the hat of 
the cold-water man who read them as his own ; the 
anti-temperance documents have marked the reader 
of them " prime ; " the Universalists have published the 
letter of reques,t as a refutation of all John Calvin's 
tenets; the album man is known as the poet; and a 
likeness of my amateur musical friend accompanies 
the ; heet of music to which the words I furnished him 
are set. My lecture on geology, though a string of 
quotations, vci'hatim, from Bakewell and Silliman, is 
denounced as incorrect in its statements, and altogether 
faulty. 

There, Mr E , you have a small sample of my life 

— and I put it to you, if my sufferings is not intolerable ? 
Let me charm never so wisely for myself, nobody is 
charmed but myself — and even I, myself, am denied the 
.gratification of being pleased with any thing I do — 
longer than till I can hear the opinions of others ; while, 
if I am called upon to supply the original essays, etc. 



A SAINT ON THE LOOKOUT. 243 

of my friends, nobody can commend those friends 
enough, for my work — and I am denounced as indolent, 
supine, and wanting in ambition. People suppose me 
endued with a genius of a forty horse power, — and while 
I am not permitted to deny it, I cannot pluck the plumes 
from my strutting friends, and show what I have done, 
to exonerate myself from the imputation of indolence. 
What shall I do ? Tell me, my dear E , and everlast- 
ingly oblige one, who will else soon give some one an 
opportunity to write in his hie jarct — " he might have 
been A Smart Fellow." 

The unfortunate's proper course may be designated by 
a very simple rule — let him take as much pains for him- 
self, as he does for his neighbors. One is too apt to 
regulate the zeal of his labor by the character of his 
employer, and self, in matters where labor is required, 
is often too easy a master. Let him consider the de- 
mands of others upon his time as of secondary impor- 
tance to his own. 



A SAIiNT ON THE LOOKOUT. 

The natives of some of the Ionian Islands have an 
opinion that their tutelar saint, Columba, perches him- 
self on the church spires on certain evenings, to count 
the Islands, and see that none have been destroyed by 
witchcraft. What will not ignorance and superstition 
make of men ? 



244 CORRECTED PROOFS. 



A VISION. 

" Whfit a jingling there would be, if every fool in our day, as 
of old, wore the cap and bells of hii order." 

Recipe for a nap in the evening : — A glass of negus or 
punch, a good fire, and a cigar. If these fail of their 
somnolent influence, add a newspaper, and the dose is 
inevitable. Dozing over one, upon an evening^^the sen- 
tence above quoted caught my eye. It stood alone, and 
without comment, a rule above, and one below it. I 
read and re-read — spoke and repeated it — for it seemed 
marvellously pert, though a conviction of its truth was 
irresistible. Divers and curious were the thoughts that 
single sentence prompted. 

The half dozen books that constitute a scribbler's 
library jostled each other rather uncourteously. Strange 
that authors cannot forget in their works, the jostlings 
and jealousies of their private life, but must be thus 
exemplifying the generous feelings of fellows of a trade. 
" Le Diable Boiteaux" of Le Sage at length gained 
the mastery, and it appeared he was the original cause, 
as well as the ultimate victor. Wriggling itself out of 
the rank, and standing in advance of the others, the 
volume opened, and, stepping from the Frontispiece, 
AsMODEUs himself, in propria persona, hobbled down 
from the shelf Touching the tip of my right ear with 
the end of his crutch, " listen ! " said the demon. 

" 1 hear a faint tinkling, good Asmodeus. What 
means it 1 " 



A VISION. 245 

"Listen ! " said my visiter, and handling his crutch 
like a veteran, he tipped the other external index of my 
hearing apparatus. 

" Save you—" 

" Tut ! my dear fellow — that's no aspiration for a 
Christian. Save me ! — you are beside yourself." 

" That may be, Asmodeus, and I am beside you also 
— but can neither understand myself nor your Demon'* 
ship, for the racket. If all the beasts who bore burden 
at the building of Babel wore each a bell, they could 
not have jingled in this wise. Clap a stopper in one 
lug again, if you please, for 

Mine ear is pained — 

As modest Covvper, whom you jostled aside on the shelf, 
hath it. Oh, how many fools there are in the world ! " 

Here one of t)ie crutches approached my head again. 
Nearly stunned with the music, which the acute sense 
of hearing, already imparted, had blessed my ears withal, 
and unwilling to suffer farther by the sharpening of any 
other of my senses, T dodged incontinently, and — wu'r- 
dbile dictu ! — my own bell rattled in my ears — loud — 
deep — abrupt. 

" And I too, a fool ! " • 

** To be sure you are, sir. I'll read you some counts 
of the indictment. You have lived till this time, to be 
surprised at the number of fools in the world ! As an 
author, you are hoping for emolument ! — a precious fool ; 
for fame ! — an ambitious fool ; for ease ! — oh, fool ! Nay 
— start not at the truth, or your bell rattles. I talk in 
plain terms when I would befriend. If it pleased me 
to injure you, I would flatter — but I shall be plain with 
you, and administer coarser food to your vanity, than 
21* 



246 



CORRECTED PROOFS 



that with which the Spartan fool, Lycurgus, dosed his 
people. Your head aches? Pray Heaven, then, that 
the noise of other people's folly be aye the only cause 
which shall disturb you. Now for a walk." 

***** * 

" That elegantly dressed gentlemen — " 

*' Wears the bell for imagining that people are admir- 
ing him, when it is only his tailor's skill that they are 
gaping at. And Shears is a fool for selling him the suit 
on credit. That crack customer driving a span, is es- 
tablishing his credit by whipping before the doors of his 
friends and patrons. If he wants a note endorsed to- 
morrow — and whether he will or not, you know as well 
as he, and he knows as well as if he had nothing to do 
with his own business — that equipage will drive him, to 
whom he applies for a name, a long way from giving it." 

" There is one person without the badge — fortunate 
fellow ! I am happy that in the crowd, there is one 
better than a fool ! " 

" Not so fast, not so fasti He, like a distinctly and 
well-drawn picture, needs no label — like a book of one 
chapter, he needs no index — a title-page suffices. In 
his, read Brandy in the flushed cheek — Jamaica in the 
carbuncles, and Intemperance in the tout cnsanhh. 
Had I bell'd him to shew you he was a fool, I had more 
richly merited the jingle myself 

" Yonder creeps a mortal whose strength is scarce 
sufficient to carry him along under his bell. He is a 
sufferer by empiricism. Steam, lobelia, and red-pepper 
have wasted a form once robust, to the attenuated thing 
you see — the effigy of a man. His faith is unshaken 
in the virtues of the system, and he is even now crawl- 
ing to receive his coup de grace at the hands of his ex- 







A VISION. 247 



'*.' 



ecutioner. If there be any thing for which the bell is 
merited, it is putting one's life into the hands of a pre- 
tender, unfit to be trusted with the ails of a pet dog. 

" Each of the multitude is, as you see, marked with 
some characteristic of a fool. Men are not now canni- 
bals, but in some sense, different men and classes of 
men are relatively placed as the orders of animals stand 
to each other. The hawk pounces upon the sparrow — so 
that hawk-eyed man with a silver bell is ready to settle 
upon the poor devil before him, who is fool enough to 
imagine he can turn Pluto from his purpose, by any elo- 
quence or entreaty. He might as well expostulate with 
the bronze statue of the Tzar Peter Alexowitz. 

'' Monkeys are laughed at as imitators — look at the 
whole race of fashionables ! Nothing is so preposterous 
that fashionable precedent may not authorise it — noth- 
ing so monstrous that fashion may not stamp it elegant. 

'* You have seen a poor little fluttering bird run into 
the very jaws of a serpent ! See that bewildered wight 
with a head full of illusive hopes, a mind intent on specu- 
lation, gloating upon visions of castles in the air. His 
contracts have been extended beyond the possibility of 
his meeting them — mortgages — hypothecation of stock 
— one per cent per diem — are his last honorable resorts. 
He trembles on the brink of ruin — hesitates between 
the Scylla of bankruptcy, and the Charybdis of dishon- 
esty. One or the other must dash his dreams. 

'' The jackal is fabled to beat the bush for the lion, 
and the king of beasts is said to make use of him for 
his menial work. Thus, among men, the great little and 
the little great are mutually useful, and mutually faith- 
less to each other. As, among beasts, the strong oppress 
the weak, and the crafty weak betray the strong — even 



248 CORRECTED PROOFS. 

SO among men, each takes advantage of the other's as- 
sailable points to serve his own ends, and effect the des- 
truction of those who stand in the way of his ambition 
or cupidity. " The lion may expire by the puncture of 
an asp," so the foul breath of slander and the wily spirit 
of detraction tarnish the fame, destroy the peace, and 
mar the prospects, of the really meritorious man. 

" How aptly is he bell'd, who expects fame to foMow 
merit — a fool, indeed, but an honest fool. Per contra, 
how justly does the tinkle mark the man, who, having 
turned the merits of his cotemporary to his own advance- 
ment, and clapped the wreath upon his own head which 
should have been worn by another, imagines that he can 
believe his flatterers, and cheat himself into an opinion 
that he is indeed what they represent him. A knavish 
fool ! He knows better — and he has the glitter without 
the gold for his pains — the shadow without the substance. 
He is for a while distinguished, but not happy — nor is 
he long allowed to wear his borrowed plumes. Like 
the donkey in the fable, who donned the lion's skin — '* 

Bah ! I put the fire end of my cigar to my lips — started 
— and lost Asmodeas and the rest of the vision. Since 
th;at evening, I do not see an egregious fool, but I hear 
a noise in my ears like a bell tinkle — and I feel tempted » 
like Pat, to ask him if he too does not hear it. 



MR TIM ORIS DUMPS. 249 



MR TIM ORIS DUMPS 

Keeps a common-place book — and a very uncommon 
common-place book it is, T assure you. Scraps from 
country newspapers, pasted in, and manuscript copies 
of such items as the following : — " Recipe to cure the 
bite of a mad dog." " To recover a drowned man." 
A dozen prescriptions for cholera. " Bay rum, infallible 
for rheumatism." '' Mustard, a good emetic, and may 
be administered in case of poison, before a doctor arrives 
— dose, five large tea-spoons." *' N. B. The apothecary 
at the next corner has a stomach-pump — to inquire 
whether it is in order, and if not, to volunteer its repairs 
from my own pocket." " To complain to the City Mar- 
shal, of Mr 's cellar." " To inquire of Palmer, 

of the Tremont Laboratory, the properties of chloride 
lime and chloride soda^ and their comparative strength." 
'* To write a series of essays for the newspapers, recom- 
mending the building of shaded side-walks for Winter, 
to break the fall of snow from the roofs of houses." 
" To have permanent stagings built for masons and car- 
penters, with a preventer wall of three inch plank, to 
save bricks from falling into the street." " N. B. To 
call and examine Richardson's Patent Fire Alarm." 
'' To suggest the building of steam engines for boats, 
with a five feet brick, water-tight, Roman cement wall, 
between them and the cabin." " To get up a petition to 
the Legislature, to have the speed on railroads restricted 
by law to six miles the hour." " To buy a specimen of 
each of the life-preservers manufactured by all the India 



250 CORRECTED PROOFS. 

Rubber Companies — must be attended to immediately, 
as I cross a bridge once a week." 

I forbear farther extracts, as they cannot be very 
interesting, save to Mr Dumps, and will give, instead, a 
sketch of the man himself In the Winter, he wonders 
that he has a continual cold — but nobody who knows 
him has any surprise on the subject, because, if the 
streets are in particularly bad order, abounding in what 
is significantly called sjyiosh, in the vernacular, he is 
sure to wade through the worst of it, longitudinally, in 
the very middle of the street, to avoid the danger of 
being buried on the side-walks. He wears caoutouches 
to be sure, but they fill, and only express the snow-water 
through his boots. The same choice of path causes 
him as many narrow escapes as there are sploshy days 
— -and as much as one knock-down by a carriage, per 
"Winter, as, in sealing his ears against cold, he seals 
them against sound. 

In dog-days, he wears beneath his pants a cow-hide 
case, strapped to his legs, impenetrable to canine teeth. 
In the building season, his hat has been stuffed full of 
waste paper, ever since he heard of an editor's wonder- 
ful escape from death by the blow of a brick-bat. All 
the sugar used in his house has been subjected to a 
chemical test, since some of the Down-Easters were 
poisoned by Muscovado. The water used for culinary 
purposes is all filtered, and when his cook boils a cabbage 
she cuts it into inch pieces, to be sure of the absence 
of adders, etc, A rope-ladder is coiled beneath his 
chamber window, duly fastened to two staples, and all 
his valuables are nightly packed in a fire-proof chest. 
His assortment of medicines and preventives has deter- 
mined an apothecary's apprentice who spends half his 



MR TIM OBIS DUMPS. 251 

time in putting them up, to wait till he can buy at auc- 
tion the medicine-chest of the late Mr Dumps, before 
he sets up in business for himself. 

Of newspapers, he patronises those which publish the 
most horrible accidents, providential escapes, patent 
medicine advertisements, and obituary notices. His 
present standing dish of trouble is the French war, and 
he has purchased the last surgical work, to know how 
to treat a shot or sabre wound, and provided himself with 
styptics, tourniquets, splints, and other necessary appli- 
ances, in case he should be drafted, and compelled to 
serve in the militia. The necessary sum for the pur- 
chase of a substitute is appropriated, labelled, and kept 
inviolate in one department of his pocket-book — and he 
has already singled out the man, who, he is determined, 
if need be, shall serve as food for powder, instead of 
Timoris Dumps, Esquire. 

A more supremely unhappy man cannot be found in 
the world. A delightful season of sunshine torments 
him with the fear that the exterior wood-work of his 
house may become dry and inflammable — rain affrights 
him with the danger of miasma from stagnant pools of 
water after it, and with fear of damps, colds, and rheu- 
matism, during its continuance. Spring has its horrors 
of unripe fruit and vegetables — Summer has its falling 
bricks, malignant disorders, and mad dogs — Autumn 
its peculiar diseases — Winter hard times, avalanches, 
and consumption. To the appropriate fears of each 
season, is superadded his anticipation of the critical 
periods of the next. 

All this in confidence, my dear reader — I would not 
that Mr Dumps should hear of it, for the world — but, 
entre nous, I can't say much for his wisdom. " Suffi- 



252 CORRECTED PROOFS. 

cient for the day, is the evil thereof," and one might 
as well meet all his notes for the next six months, to- 
day, as to borrow all the trouble he can possibly encoun- 
ter — and more too. " Hang care ! " says the old adage, 
**it killed the cat." The man in trouble is not such a 
delightful part to enact, that one need constantly be 
rehearsing it — I warrant we shall all be perfect enough, 
when the time comes. If you must dream of the future, 
dream of something worth your while. If you will 
build castles in the air, don't take Udolpho for a model, 
but some airy, pleasant, modern structure. Leave 
physic to the dogs and the doctors — war to General 
Jackson — the banks and hard times to our six hundred 
legislators — at any rate, don't trouble trouble, till trouble 
troubles you. 



P A R M E N I O , 



When he was once greeted with an approbative shout 
from a multitude, turned to a philosopher who stood 
near him, and said *' Pardon me, I fear I have been 
guilty of some absurdity ! " What a good opinion of 
himself must the Grecian have rejoiced in — and what 
a craving appetite for adulation that sentence betrays. 
Note it when you will, those who profess indifference 
to the opinions of the world, value fame highest. 



CONFESSIONS OF A BASHFUL flJAN. 253 



CONFESSIONS OF A BASHFUL MAN. 

[The following, neatly written on pink paper, rolled in an en- 
velope, and fastened with blue ribbon, was picked up in Congress 
Street. It was supposed the author intendt-d to make one of the 
newspapers the organ of his confessions — and the article was dis- 
posed of accordingly.] 

I don't know what I was created for — really. Let it 
be what it will, one thing is certain, I have never brought 
much to pass. I hate the bustle and crowding neces- 
sary to put myself forward — hate it for the exertion 
necessary to bring about distinction ; and because I fear 
some booby, whose sole recommendation is impudence, 
will step in before me, just as I am on the eve of reach- 
ing the point, and thrust me aside by sheer blustering. 
People generally imagine that your bashful man is 
very modest — there never was a greater mistake. Now, 
in my own humble opinion, there is no man better qual- 
ified than myself to shine in court, camp, or pulpit — to 
edify, enlighten, and astonish the world — but alas ! my 
light has ever been hid under a bushel — and why? 
Because my cotemporaries never had penetration enough 
to detect its glimmer, throw aside the veil, and open on 
the world its lustre. If my talent is hid, it is not be- 
cause I am unaware of its value — far from it. As I 
have said before of bashful people in general, so I say 
of myself in particular, I am one of the most self-suffi- 
cient mortals in being. Mauvaise-honte is only another 
name for pride. Conscious of my own abilities, and 
22 



254 CORRECTED PROOFS. 

rating them far above their merit, I am astonished at 
the lack of judgment betrayed by my fellows in neglect- 
ing to bring me out. They know not what they lose by 
their neglect of my talent. If I do not thrust myself 
forward, it is because — in addition to the reason laid 
down at the beginning of my sheet — I conceive it due 
to myself to wait to be brought forward. The world 
owes me its notice, and I am determined the debt shall 
be paid^ me, without applying for it. What ! cannot 
Archibald Encyclopedia, Esq. be treated as he deserves, 
without taking upon him the task of showing himself 
up, as a jockey parades a horse for a market 1 

Monday. Turned out in tolerable season. Sundays 
so dull, for a man too bashrul to attend church, that 
b.etween Saturday night and Monday morning, I become 
too tired of my couch, to sleep late. Looked out at 
my window. Would have walked, had it been a dull 
morning — but the sun shone so delightfully, that there 
were thousands walking. Could not think of exposing 
myself to the gaze of so many people — know they would 
all have been gaping at so remarkable a man as myself 
— too modest to endure all the notice which would have 
been taken of me — concluded not to go out. (Confound- 
edly provoked that nobody had asked me to walk on the 
day before. Recollected that I saw nobody — wondered 
that nobody had hunted me out. Astonished that peo- 
ple won't run after a man who runs away from them.) 
Took up the morning paper. Looked over the mar- 
riages — came near fainting — nobody in sight — deter- 
mined not to go to that trouble, for if I fainted without 
witnesses, the circumstance could not be reported. 
Wondered how Miss Amanda , could have married 



CONFESSIONS OF A BASHFUL MAN. 255 

that booby, Henry , when she must have known I 

liked her. Never told her so to be sure ; but she might 
have made advances herself — she knows I am very 
modest. — but very accomplished, and an excellent man 
for a husband altogether. Heigho ! well, if such a re- 
markable man as Archibald Encyclopedia cannot get a 
wife without asking — why — he w^ill do without one. 
Some lady or other will be a tremendous loser, that's a 
fact. Strange they should be so blind as not to per- 
ceive the merit of a man who never displayed any. 

Read the advertising page — pretty well, too ! That 
impudent doughface, Peter Superficial, appointed Cash- 
ier of the Bank ! Should have liked the birth 

myself — but because I did not apply, modest merit was 
overlooked. Am an excellent accountant — singular 
that the fact could not have leaked out, without my 
announcing it. Well, well, Peter has the advantage of 
me this time, by blowing his own trumpet. I, forsooth, 
a better penman, accountant, &/C. than he is, have lost 
the birth because nobody knew I wanted it, and nobody 
took pains to inquire whether I w^as fit for it or not. 

Literary Notices. Let's see. " A dissertation on 
the materials of which Babel was built, together with 
incidental remarks upon the different cements in use 
for building, from the date of the erection of the Chi- 
nese Wall to the present time. By Simon Trowel, 
A. B." Simon Trowel an author ! A good one! What 
fools the publishers are ! Why, I am authority upon 
all matters of antiquity ; if a work of this kind was 
called for, why was I not requested to write it ? I can 
dilate on all subjects, from the natural history of the 
tenants of Noah's ark, down to the anatomy of a mod- 



256 CORRECTED PROOFS. 

ern flea, or a dissertation on the social habits and in- 
tellectual traits of a lobster or craw fish. I can retail 
all the court scandal of the days of Queen Semiramis; 
give you the statistics of the revenue and treasures of 
King Croesus, and account chemically and philosophi- 
cally for the process by which Midas turned all he 
touched to gold. To be sure, I have no acquaintance 
with Pica, Minion & Co., the publishers, but they 
might have known I could write, by my countenance, 
my habits, general appearance, and extraordinary eru- 
dition ! If the world wishes me to enlighten it — I must 
be applied to — that's all. I shall not court the favor of 
those whose duty it is to worship my talents. 

Ten o'clock. Saw some callers coming up the ave- 
nue. Bolted to my garret — took down Cicero's Ora- 
tions — could not read — because I was mentally per- 
suaded the call was intended for me. Saw them off — 
went down — astonished upon learning that my name 
had not been mentioned. Mother informed me that 
her brother, a captain, had returned, not " from the 
wars," but from India, and would dine with us. Tried 
to beg off from dining with the family — plead sickness 
— old folks would not listen. Argued that I was not in 
trim to see company — mother relented — but father pro- 
tested he would stand no such nonsense. Obliged, per 
force, to promise attendance. 

Dinner, An amphibious monster that captain uncle 
of mine. Sports tremendous whiskers, and wears a 
choppa. Wants a supercargo. Wonder he had not 
offered me a recommendation to his owners. He es- 
sayed to open a conversation — answered him in mono- 
syllables. Think this maratime life does not require 



CONFESSIONS OF A BASHFUL MAN. 257 

such a vast deal of experience to qualify one. Might 
make a ship-master. A booby, that captain, to direct 
all his conversation to my brother and not notice me, 
older and better informed as I am. Sat still and held 
my tongue from sheer rage. (Heard my mother impute 
it to modesty.) 

Evening. Attended the lyceum. Heard Arthur 

E support the affirmative of the question before the 

mee^ting. Determined to answer him. Audience ap- 
parently very much pleased vi^ith his argument — broke 
out into open applause. Disgusted with their lack of 
judgment, in applauding what I considered abominable 
nonsense — resolved not to throw pearls before swine, 
by addressing so wretchedly ignorant an assemblage. 
(My silence placed to the score of modesty again.) 

There is the history of a day of every day occur- 
rences. Upon extraordinary occasions my modesty is 
still more apparent. If, reader, you are not yourself a 
" Bashful Man," no description of mine can convey to 
you an adequate conception of the vanity hid under the 
cloak of *' Bashfulness." 



22^ 



Z5S CORRECTED PROOFS. 



KEEP COMFORTABLE. 

COUNSEL FOR COLD WEATHER. 

Till the commencement of the present century, the 
head was a sort of tcn^a incognita — unexplored by any 
save messengers with more teeth than tongue. Now 
that phrenology — 

Still harping on thai theme! 

Easy, easy, dear reader ; look back to the head line — 
keep comfortable ! The warmth of rage is unnatural, 
and of no avail to the comfort of the body, even in cold 
weather. Let your heat be from without, from anthra- 
cite, bituminous, Lehigh or Liverpool — but keep cool 
mentally. If phrenologists will make dura ?nater, ci- 
nerifious, and medullary , occiput, frontal sinus, and 
half a hundred other heathen terms, household words, 
how can you help it ? and how can I ? 

The Boston Society have discovered a new organ. 
They call it associativcness — and, among other things, 
it is the spring of fondness for society — large in geese, 
in sheep, in crows, in men of gregarious habit, and in 
buffaloes. Cultivate associativcness. ' Avoid solitude. 
Misery loves company, therefore do not freeze alone. 
A group is much more picturesque and interesting than 
a single figure. Keep warm hearts about you, and a 
good fire, an easy, animated flow of conversation, that 
your tongue chatter, and not your teeth. Take in an 
interesting periodical. 



KEEP COMFORTABLE. 259 

Do not agitate the slave question, or be agitated by 
it. Have to do with nothing black, but black diamonds 
from the Schuylkill mines or the Peach Orchard. Con» 
versation about slavery will introduce the subject of 
warmer climates incidentally, and engender envy of the 
very class of people the abolitionists would teach you 
to pity. What do the slaves know of a thermometer 
fifteen degrees below zero ? 

Remember the poor. A fire built by you in a hovel, 
miles away, will warm your heart, and warmth of the 
body follows — a warmth most agreeable. Be resolved 
that all the misery you can prevent, you will, and re- 
eolving — execute. 

Keep your feet dry. Man does not, like other vege- 
tables, flourish by constant irrigation, Summer or Win- 
ter. Study health more than comeliness in the adorn- 
ment of the outer man, but never altogether neglect 
comeliness. John Neal says — " Dress a man up, and 
you give him clean and new ideas. His very loll is 
graceful or imposing; and he feels thut it is so.'"' I 
iterate Mr Neal's opinion — let the voice reach you, not 
as from one having experience, but as from a sloven, in 
warning. Do not forget to keep your feet dry. 

Shut the door ! At home, for economy of fuel — 
abroad, to escape apocryphal blessings. There is no 
excuse for leaving a door open behind you — you may 
be coming back — so is Summer — but there is a chance 
to freeze before the return of either. 

Keep a clean conscience, and a balance on the credit 
side of your ledger. Above all, pay the printer. To 
read a paper paid for in advance, is pleasure unalloyed 
— your own paper, I mean. Stolen waters are sweet, 



269 CORRECTED PROOFS. 

but newspapers are not all water, though some are milk 
and water. There is a consciousness of leisure, and 
an I-do-not-care-when-I-get-through feeling, necessary 
to the enjoyment of a newspaper, which a borrower 
never experiences. 

Avoid such out-door recreations as sleigh-riding. It 
is barbarous and Lapland-ish. I never see a party 
whisked along in sleighs, sitting for frozen feet and 
ears under Jack Frost's fingers, but I think of a 
goose whisked through a fire to singe off her pin- 
feathers. The cases are antipodes, but extremes some- 
times meet, and often resemble each other. There is 
little to choose, for comfort, between freezing and 
roasting. Skate, if you like; " coast" if you are boy 
enough ; throw snowballs, if you have a friend you can 
pepper with impunity, but do not condemn yourself to a 
sleigh-riding punishment, unless you wish to do penance. 
Think of it. Packed in a box — the feet still enough to 
stop circulation even in warm weather, the bight of the 
reins frozen in your hands, and the ends of your fingers 
insensible. Imagine the sweet nothings which you 
drop for your adored, freezing before they compass the 
two inches between your lips and her boa. Think of 
the voice in which you must bellow the amiable to be 
heard above the sleigh-bells. Cupid's arrows are fragile, 
and ill calculated to penetrate half a dozen thicknesses 
of fur. Think of these things, and do not sleigh-ride 
and slay comfort. 

Do not stand out of doors to cheapen wood. The 
vender always has the advantage of you, and can stand 
untouched by frost while you freeze and thaw again. 
What you gain in the price you will lose in the con- 



KEEP COMFORTABLE. 261 

sumption of fuel necessary to restore yourself. Do not 
cheapen poultry — cheapen nothing but ice, and never 
take that unless forced upon you. Keep a quantity by 
you, on your side-walks — it is charity, inasmuch as it 
compels sluggish passengers to gymnastics. 

Build no fire in your sleeping chambers. Plunge 
into a cold water bath in the morning. Parenthesis — 
I would have nobody tempted to commence this prac^ 
tice in the Winter. 

Have done wishing for Spring, and it will come all 
the sooner. Take the pleasures of Winter as they pre- 
sent themselves, and do not forget the old organ with a 
new name, associativeness. Now, having, like a skilful 
composer, brought my strain back to the same note 
with which I commenced, I have done. Keep com- 
fortable. 



ERRATA. 

Page 108, twelve lines from top, for beach read bench. 
Page 141, fifth line from bottom, for six bells read /bur. 



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